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A FORGOTTEN SIN 

A 'NOVEL 



DOROTHEA GERARD 

(MADAME LONGARD DE I.ONGGARDE) 

> i 

AUTHOR OF 

A SPOTLESS REPUTATION, AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE, 
THE RICH MISS RIDDELL, ETC. 


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NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1898 


TWO COPIES KECEIVED 

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COPTRIGHT, 1898, 

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 


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A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


CHAPTER I. 

Had any one coming to the neighbour- 
hood of Skeffington for the first time asked, 
“ What are the people at the Hall like? ” it 
is probable that he would have got some such 
answer as this: “ Oh, they are just very like 
everybody else. He a pleasant old gentleman, 
very busy with the estate, and still a little 
vain of his looks, which, I believe, used to 
be quite stunning, once upon a time: she hope- 
lessly commonplace, but quite harmless; the 
sort of person whom it is so difficult to find 
anything to say about, don’t you know? or to 
say to, either, for the matter of that — an ex- 
cellent housekeeper/ I believe, but certainly 

she can never, have l been stunning to look at; 

■* # ♦ 

anyway, it’s he who bears off the palm for 


2 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


interest between the two. As for the girl — 
well, she’s just a pretty English girl,— very 
pretty, I admit, and also very English, — a 
little in the old-fashioned style, perhaps, and 
not with very much to say for herself either, 
or anyway not yet. And they all get on so 
excellently together, and everything always 
rufis so smoothly at the Hall, that one never 
has the chance of making a remark.” 

Such, looked at from a neighbourly point 
of view, was the impression given by the 
Skeffington family circle; and even a much 
closer look did not dispel it. Any one, for in- 
stance, who, after the departure of the last 
guests to-day, could have managed to return 
invisibly to the drawing-room where father, 
mother, and daughter were lingering before 
the final good-night, would certainly have re- 
mained of opinion that these people were 
“ just like everybody else,” — that is to say, 
an eminently respectable family, affectionate 
and prosperous, and uninteresting because of 
these very attributes. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


3 

Mr. Morell, his elbow on the mantelpiece 
and his finely-shaped hand caressing his finely- 
shaped forehead with a gesture which was 
habitual in him, — though perhaps a little too 
elegant in figure and too regular in feature 
to be called a typical British squire, might 
nevertheless be taken as a distinctly fine speci- 
men of an English country gentleman, though, 
of course, an elderly one. There had been a 
time when that well-moulded hand had passed 
thus lovingly over brilliant, golden locks, — 
that was the time at which the characteristic 
gesture had been acquired; and though in 
place of the golden locks there was now a 
bald forehead, thinly fringed with silver, the 
fingers had not unlearned the trick, and con- 
tinued to caress the naked skin almost as 
complacently as they had once caressed the 
much-admired, sunny locks. The more inter- 
esting of the two: yes, there could scarcely 
be a doubt of that. Looking at the shortish, 
stout woman with the ordinary face, just now 
lighting her bedroom candle, it was impos- 


4 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


sible not to agree with the imaginary inform- 
ant above quoted. 

And Esme? Here also the informant was 
right, for she distinctly deserved the italicised 
very before the “ pretty ” bestowed upon her, 
though it was not an obtrusive sort of pretti- 
ness. No sensational contrast of hair and 
eyes, no dazzling brilliancy of complexion, 
nothing that was likely to strike at a distance; 
only a graceful though still over-youthful fig- 
ure, a childishly clear skin, a quantity of that 
peculiar shade of fair hair which the French 
call cendre, and a pair of thickly-fringed, grey- 
blue eyes which were neither shy nor bold, 
neither sad nor gay, but which might yet be- 
come any of these things, according to what 
Fate held in store for this child’s soul which 
still looked out through them upon the unex- 
plored world. 

Likewise, it seemed true that she had little 
to say for herself; but that was scarcely to 
be wondered at, considering that to-day was 
her seventeenth birthday, and that the big 


A FORCxOTTEN SIN. 


5 

dinner-party which had been given in honour 
of the event was the first occasion in which 
she had figured in public in a frock of the regu- 
lation “ grown-up ” length. 

“ Did it feel very uncomfortable? ” asked 
Mr. Morell, gazing fondly at his daughter 
across the room, and still playing with the 
imaginary hair on his forehead. 

“ Not quite so bad as I expected, except 
for the train; I hope nobody saw me kick- 
ing it about. I can’t imagine how people 
manage in a ballroom.” 

Mr. Morell laughed indulgently. 

“ By the time you have been through half 
a season you will be able to manage it quite 
easily; won’t she, Mary?” 

“ I suppose she will,” replied Mrs. Morell, 
placidly, and then added after a moment: 
“ But there is no hurry about that. We are 
not going to London this year, surely? ” 

“ No, no, not this year,” he said, with just 
a touch of haste. “ I shall be very busy this 
summer; and besides, there is the expense to 


6 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


consider. Time enough to be presented at 
eighteen. By next year everything will be 
easier.” 

He shifted his elbow on the mantelpiece, 
and stood for a few minutes gazing silently 
into the dying fire. 

“ I am sure Esme is in no hurry about it,” 
observed Mrs. Morell in her tranquil, even 
voice. 

“None at all,” agreed Esme, stifling a 
yawn, for she was not yet used to late hours. 
“ If there exists a passion for dancing within 
me it has not yet been aroused. Just now it 
is only my bed that I am in any hurry about.” 

The eyes of both father and mother fol- 
lowed her from the room. 

“ But when we do bring her out,” ex- 
claimed Mr. Morell, as the door closed be- 
hind the slender, white-robed apparition, “ I 
feel pretty sure that her path will be clear. 
I don’t know what other people think of her, 
and possibly I am a partial judge, but I con- 
fess that I find her beautiful, or on the high- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


7 

road to. becoming beautiful. Tell me, Mary, 
does it not strike you that she has got ex- 
actly my eyes? Excuse the vanity of the re- 
mark,” he laughed, lightly. 

“ The colour, certainly, is the same,” 
agreed Mrs. Morell, a little stolidly. 

“ And her hair, too, reminds me, — though, 
to be sure, I fancy my hair had more colour 
in it,” and he g&zed somewhat wistfully at 
the reflection of his denuded forehead in the 
glass. 

“Your hair was the colour of gold,” said 
Mrs. Morell, busying herself again with her 
candle. 

“ So it was, so it was,” and he nodded 
slowly to himself in the glass. “ Anyway, the 
resemblance is unmistakable. I confess I am 
very curious as to the effect she will produce, 
and as to the offers she will have. I feel 
pretty certain that she will soon be married.” 

“ Oh, but I can’t lose her yet,” said the 
mother, a trifle more quickly. 

“ Why not, if it is to secure her own hap- 


8 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


piness? Tell me, Mary,” and he raised his 
head as though under the influence of some 
new thought, “ do you not think it very likely 
that she will make a big marriage? ” 

This time the wife appeared to hesitate 
before answering. 

“ Why need she make a big marriage? 
Has she not enough of her own? ” 

“ I never said there was any need,” an- 
swered the husband, with the faintest touch 
of irritation; “but, except in the eyes of 
monks or maniacs, big marriages are surely 
preferable to small ones; and the greater her 
fortune, the greater, humanly speaking, will 
be her chances of enjoyment, or of doing good 
either, if it comes to that. Surely you agree 
with me? ” 

“ Oh yes, I agree. But, Robert, is it not 
time for us to be thinking of bed? You told 
me, did you not, that you have to take the 
early train to town again to-morrow? ” 

“To be sure; it won’t do to gossip any 
longer. Let us sleep upon the consciousness 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


9 

that Esme’s first step in society has been a 
success. We may be proud of our daughter, 
Mary. Why do you say so little? Are you 
not as proud as I am? ” 

“ I am as proud as you are,” and the home- 
ly grey eyes kindled for a moment, as the ex- 
ultant father stooped to kiss the passive 
mother’s cheek. “ But you know that I can’t 
talk so well as you do, Robert.” 

“ That’s right. Leave the talking to me,” 
he laughed, good-naturedly, “ and meanwhile 
don’t forget that I shall require my coffee at 
seven to-morrow morning. Good night, 
Mary.” 

“ Good night, Robert,” and, with the ex- 
change of another smile, they took their sev- 
eral ways. 


CHAPTER II. 


Let us follow the members of this hum- 
drum, well-to-do English family to their re- 
spective apartments, and see whether, in the 
depths of privacy, they look so exactly “ like 
everybody else ” as was generally asserted. 

The first thing that Mr. Morell did on 
reaching his room was not to make ready for 
bed, but, having divested himself only of his 
evening-coat, to begin pacing the floor with 
an expression of troubled, rather than joy- 
ous excitement on his still handsome face. 
Occasionally, when passing the glass on the 
toilet-table, he would throw a glance at his 
own reflection; but it was not of his own looks 
that he was then thinking. 

“ If she has anything like the success that 
I had,” — he mused dreamily and hopefully. 

IO 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


II 


And certainly, if Esme could attain the posi- 
tion in society once occupied by her father, 
there could be little doubt that her fortune 
was made. 

Some thirty years ago Robert Morell had 
come as near to being a male professional 
beauty as the usages of British society, as 
well as a substratum of common-sense in his 
own nature, would allow. Despite the com- 
mon-sense, however, society had succeeded in 
spoiling him for any other profession; for this 
universal favourite was not only marvellously 
handsome, he was also a good conversational- 
ist, obviously good-natured, and of that un- 
dying gaiety of temperament which enlivens 
the dullest drawing-room. With just enough 
fortune to live decently in chosen circles, he 
had early begun to let himself drift. Without 
having ever been deliberately vicious, he had 
never found the strength to resist the exer- 
cise of his power over women; and had thus, 
by his twenty-fifth year, acquired the reputa- 
tion of having broken more hearts than any 


12 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


other man then en vogue in London, and had 
yet never been in love with anybody but him- 
self. Needless to say that the pet of society 
was all the more courted and caressed by the 
beauties of each season for this faculty of re- 
maining fancy-free. 

Strangely enough, the one pair of eyes 
which for a time had taken to haunting his 
dreams did not belong to any of these fash- 
ionable beauties, but to a low-born girl, the 
daughter of a cottager under whose modest 
roof he had spent some days during a fishing- 
tour in the south of England. He had meant 
to stop in the cottage for only one night, but 
the eyes had been so curiously fascinating that 
they had compelled him to change his pro- 
gramme. 

A slender, graceful, untamed thing she 
was — Jialf-shy, half-bold, half-unapproachable, 
half-seductive, with a quivering mouth and 
flashes of fierce desire in her brown eyes that 
were so strangely shot through with gleams 
of yellow. He had never seen this exact light 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


13 


in any human eyes before, though he had no- 
ticed it often in the eyes of a young dog, or 
in those of panthers or wild cats. It was a 
new variety in women’s eyes, and so out of the 
common that it interested even this connois- 
seur of women. It was in order to study those 
curiously animal eyes more closely that he 
decided to stop on for a few days longer — 
for that, and to amuse himself by seeing 
whether this shy creature of the woods, who 
shrank from him so fearfully and yet vibrated 
so visibly in response to his every touch, was 
not to be tamed by the same magic that had 
brought so many of her highly educated sis- 
ters to his feet. There were no trout caught 
in those sunny June days, but there were many 
secret strolls by the murmuring river, where 
creel and rod lay at rest among the boulders, 
and many talks in the long summer twilights. 
It was a change from London drawing-rooms 
and wasp-waisted belles. Sometimes indeed, 
in later days, it had passed through his mind 
that if fate had thrown him more frequently 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


14 

into the path of that vibrating creature he 
might actually have lost a good part of his 
usually so sublime serenity. But fate had not 
brought them together again. For a time 
that so startling yellow light would follow 
him in his dreams, and when, a year later, he 
was passing near the same place on another 
fishing-tour, he had actually gone out of his 
way in order to make inquiries after Eva 
Birke. The old cottager was dead, he learnt, 
and the girl and her brother had emigrated to 
America some months before. On the whole 
he was relieved to hear it, though he would 
have enjoyed seeing the yellow eyes again. 
Soon they faded even from his dreams, and 
it was many years now since he had thought 
of them. 

Meanwhile, though his hair was beginning 
to grow thin, he continued to be a much-ad- 
mired and much-sought-after bachelor; but 
already he watched himself a little anxiously 
in the glass. “ When the skin begins to show 
through that place at the side,” he said to 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


15 

himself, “ it will be time to think of settling 
down.” 

But, before the skin had quite begun to 
show through, there came another warning, 
for one day, as he was taking a bite out of a 
real Scotch oatcake, he felt a curious sensa- 
tion in his mouth, and assured himself by 
means of his tongue that one of his front teeth 
was loose. Things were beginning to get 
serious; decidedly the moment was come. It 
was now that the substratum of common-sense 
came to the surface, right through the thick 
layer of vanity. 

“ Better go before I am dismissed,” he re- 
flected philosophically, and began deliberate- 
ly to look about him. Among the many can- 
didates for his favour there was a rather 
considerable heiress of the name of Mary 
Garrett, in whose quiet grey eyes his prac- 
tised glance had long since read a devotion 
deeper, if less ostentatious, than that of many 
more demonstrative women. Why not make 
her happy, in consideration of her rent-roll? 


1 6 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


Her plainness of feature struck him as an ad- 
vantage, rather than otherwise. No doubt 
this pet of society had his own reasons for 
distrusting a beautiful wife — that is to say, if 
she were one’s own wife instead of somebody 
else’s. Be this as it may, the elderly Adonis 
bestowed his much-admired person upon Mary 
Garrett, and, abjuring his youth and its tra- 
ditions, forthwith settled down into the regu- 
lation respectable country squire. The splen- 
did estate of Skeffington, which his bride had 
brought to him as her portion, was the very 
place to awaken ambitions of a certain order; 
and even the easy-going Robert Morell, find- 
ing himself suddenly transformed from an al- 
most poor man into a very considerable land- 
owner,, seemed to undergo a radical change of 
nature. He required a new interest in life to 
replace that furnished by his fast-fading looks, 
and finding so fine an opportunity ready to 
hand, he threw himself into his new role with 
a zest and power of enjoyment of which he 
had scarcely suspected himself capable. The 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


17 

estate, though in fair order, had, in the hands 
of old-fashioned trustees, lagged behind the 
times; there were none of the modern im- 
provements, nothing cultivated which had not 
been cultivated last century, and many oppor- 
tunities lying waste. To all these things Mr. 
Morell now began to turn his attention with 
a new-born energy which deserved better re- 
sults. For, having no experience that had 
been gathered outside a drawing-room, and 
having, moreover, lost his head a little bit over 
his new elevation, he had early begun to en- 
tangle the affairs of the estate. A word of 
advice might have put everything right a 
dozen times during the last dozen years, but 
advice was a thing which Mr. Morell never 
asked, for, since becoming a landlord, he was 
almost as vain of his management as he had 
once been of his looks. 

His social successes, besides, had fed large 
the sanguine element in his nature, which now 
led him on from one experiment to another, 
always hoping confidently for the success 


i8 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


which yet evaded him. But although even 
larger fortunes than his have melted in ex- 
actly this fashion, all might still have been 
well if he had not, in an unlucky moment, 
conceived the hope of retrenching his losses 
, at one blow. A few words dropped by two 
unknown travelling companions in a railway 
carriage, while he was on his way to London, 
where an uncomfortable interview with his 
solicitor awaited him, had first put the fatal 
idea into Mr. Morell’s head. Since George 
Grey — whoever he might be — had become rich 
overnight merely through a parcel of Aus- 
tralian copper shares, why should not Robert 
Morell at least retrieve what he had lost by 
some such means? The thought pursued him 
during the rest of the journey, and on reach- 
ing London it was not to his solicitor that he 
went first, but to an acquaintance who dated 
from his society days, and about whom he re- 
membered having heard that he lived entirely 
by speculating on the Stock Exchange. 

The first step taken, the others followed 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


19 

almost unavoidably. Why pursue the famil- 
iar development of that recognised form of 
mental disease called gambling, to which a 
certain fixed percentage of the happiness and 
health of mankind is yearly sacrificed? The 
timid beginnings, the rapture of the first gain, 
the sting of the first loss, the growing bold- 
ness, mingled of terror and of mock confi- 
dence, the dogged desire to vanquish fate just 
because fate seems to be resisting, the ever- 
recurring feverish hope, alternating with the 
darkness of impending disaster, and finally 
the desperation which, losing all control, 
grows almost light-headed in the insane haste 
with which it throws good money after bad, 
— everybody has heard the symptoms de- 
scribed so often that they have become a mere 
commonplace. 

Mr. Morell had not yet quite reached this 
final stage, but he was at a measurable ' dis- 
tance from it. As he paced his bedroom floor 
with nervously furrowed brow, he was asking 
himself what the morrow would bring. Upon 


20 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


the news waiting for him in town the future 
of Skeffington hung wellnigh upon a thread. 
And to think that to the eyes of outsiders the 
edifice of his prosperity, hollow to the core 
and ready to crumble at a touch, still bore so 
fair an aspect! What a dust the fall would 
raise ! 

• It was the thought of exposure which 
stung far sharper than even the thought of 
poverty. To have to acknowledge his failure 
was bitterer than to have to bear the conse- 
quences. And to Mary, too, the good, de- 
voted creature who had so confidently in- 
trusted her all to him! It was a humiliation 
which he felt unable to face. Did she really 
suspect nothing? Once or twice lately he 
had caught her eyes watching him with a cer- 
tain anxious inquiry. Doubtless these fre- 
quent journeys to town had aroused her at- 
tention, and . doubtless, too, his manner be- 
trayed at times the nervous strain that was 
upon him. He was conscious even of having 
lost flesh. But she had asked nothing — she 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


21 


never did; and if the blow did fall, she would 
say nothing either, and, no doubt, would find 
in her devotion to him strength to bear it. 
“ The dear creature is so deeply attached to 
me,” mused Mr. Morell, still pacing the floor, 
“ but how about Esme? ” 

A look of real pain passed through his pale- 
blue eyes. His daughter was the one person 
in the world capable of rousing in him true 
emotion, and though possibly the admiring 
affection with which he regarded 1 her may 
have been coloured by the fact of her real 
or imagined resemblance to himself, yet it 
was of its kind a real affection. 

After a moment of painful thought he put 
up his head with a nervously defiant gesture. 

“ Bah! Why torture myself with visions 
of what may never be? To-morrow at this 
time I may know that the Brazilian Star shares 
have gone up, and all danger will be past. 
Broadly speaking, my luck has been true to 
me all my life, and I don’t believe it’s going 
to desert me now.” 


22 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


And five minutes later he was as soundly 
asleep as though there were no such things 
as Brazilian Star shares in the world. 

Meanwhile in the adjoining room the in- 
significant little person who was this man’s 
wife was still sitting over the fire, wide awake, 
and — was it possible? — yes, actually crying. 
Seen thus, divested of both lace coiffure and 
jewels, she was even plainer than she ap- 
peared in public, but, strangely enough, not 
quite so insignificant. The usually so placid 
mouth was working, and the calm grey eyes 
were shining through the tears with a sur- 
prisingly vivid light. The truth was, that this 
ordinary-looking woman, about whom people 
were accustomed to remark, “ Oh, Mrs. Mo- 
rell! ” as though to say that she didn’t count, 
was in reality a far rarer and finer nature than 
her much-admired husband, who, despite . his 
straight nose and well-turned figure, showed 
himself, when closely looked at, to be a per- 
fectly commonplace person. 

The history of her life was not very strik- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


23 

ing, but it had its own unostentatious pathos. 
She had loved deeply and had got what she 
wanted, and yet was a disappointed woman. 
At the time of her marriage she had, indeed, 
been quite clear in her mind that Robert had 
chosen her for her money’s sake and not for 
her own, but in her secret heart she had 
counted on gaining his love in time; she had 
put it to herself as a task, and she had failed. 
And even the failure might have been borne if 
her own love could have survived it. But, 
unfortunately for herself, hers was not a na- 
ture to worship blindly for long. Despite her 
homely exterior she had always been an ideal- 
ist at heart, and as one by one her illusions 
faded and fell to the ground, she passed 
through those fine phases of suffering that 
are known only to peculiarly sensitive natures. 
With a sort of youthful simplicity which was 
quite distinct from stupidity, she had fancied 
that a noble exterior must portend a noble 
soul, and she had found that the idol at whose 
feet she had worshipped was not of gold but 


24 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


of clay. Dreams had pursued her of devoting 
herself to this man’s happiness, of sacrificing 
every taste of her own to the lightest of his 
wishes, of loving him as no man had ever 
before been loved, and, behold! he did not 
require her love, nor want it, and his wishes 
were quite other from those she had pictured 
to herself. It was not her vanity which suf- 
fered so much as her pride, for she had quickly 
understood that if she had failed to gain his 
love, it was principally because he had no love 
to give, or none of the only sort which could 
have satisfied her, whereas the discovery that 
she had attempted to merge her whole being 
in a nature so far below her own stung her 
proudly reserved spirit with a sense of keen- 
est humiliation. Her fault always had been 
to take herself too seriously, and the difficulty 
of expressing herself, under which she la- 
boured, sprang from this cause as well as from 
a keen consciousness of her lack of beauty, 
the instinctive feeling which pursues certain 
natures that plain women have less right than 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


25 

beautiful women, not only to be seen, but 
also to be heard. 

Under the blight of disappointment she 
had shrunk yet further into herself, present- 
ing an even duller surface to inquiring eyes 
than she had done before. No one should 
guess the failure of her life, if she could by 
any depths of silence prevent it; no other 
woman should know that she had sold her- 
self for a price which had not been paid: 
though she should require to cut out her 
tongue for the purpose, the secret must die 
with her. Even in the early days of her mar- 
riage she had never attempted to show her 
whole feeling, nervously afraid of incommod- 
ing Robert with her affection, and in time the 
affection had come to die, and there remained 
only the empty, tired heart of the disillusioned 
woman, without the man who had been the 
cause of the disillusion having ever suspected 
the capabilities of self-sacrifice, the treasures 
of tenderness, which it had once contained, 
nor the disappointment which had rusted 


26 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


them. He had been far too busy with his 
private aims to have time for observing his 
wife, to whom he considered that he had be- 
haved very well by marrying her at all, and 
better still by remaining faithful to her after 
he had done so. “ The dear creature is so 
absurdly devoted to me,” he would still say 
to himself, with half-compassionate complac- 
ency, years after he had become to her only 
the shell of a dead ideal. 

It was of course impossible that Mrs. 
Morell should not in the course of years have 
caught various glimpses of the downfall of 
their fortunes, but she had been too diffident 
to claim the confidence withheld, and — ex- 
actly because the money was hers — too proud 
to ask for explanations. Even at this 
period, though her husband’s manner within 
the last months had made her suspect much, 
she was very far from guessing the whole 
truth. 

Robert’s words to-night concerning the 
desirability of Esme’s making a “ big ” mar- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


27 

riage had to her ears sounded more alarming 
than anything she had lately observed. 

“ And must my sweet child be sacrificed 
as I sacrificed myself? ” she queried, still 
brooding over the fire. “ I was chosen be- 
cause of my money; must her husband again 
be chosen for her, and again because of money? 
It is too much to hope that in such a case 
there will be love on both sides; and yet she 
deserves a better fate than I, if only because 
she is beautiful.” 

And the poor little person rocked her 
body and choked back her sobs for fear of 
being heard in the next room, with symptoms 
of such deeply-working emotion as no living 
soul had ever yet seen on the mistress of 
Skeffington’s everyday countenance. This 
was the real Mrs. Morell, in contradiction to 
the one generally seen in society. 

And about Esme, at this moment slum- 
bering peacefully with her pink cheek on her 
white arm, and with the soft cloud of hair 
shading her delicate neck, are there likewise 


28 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


revelations to be made? Was there a real 
Esme as well as a sham Esme to be consid- 
ered? No, or at least not yet; for, having 
, had no experiences, she had no reason to dis- 
simulate. The need for a mask would come 
in time, no doubt; but it had not come yet. 
So far, both in public and in private, Esme 
presented the same countenance, and yet even 
now, without being aware of it, she was more 
or less of a fraud, considering that the world 
took her for an heiress, whereas she was not 
very far from becoming a beggar' 

What else she was it would have been 
hard to say at this point; not even her mother 
could feel certain yet whether the child would 
prove to have a woman’s soul, and she shrank 
from the idea of the proof, knowing well that 
the word was almost synonymous with suf- 
fering. Esme’s own attitude towards life was 
one of hopeful, but not in the least impatient, 
expectation. It seemed so natural to suppose 
that the future would be as smooth and pleas- 
ant as the past had been, and the past had 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


2 9 

been so pleasant that she felt in no hurry what- 
ever to say good-bye to it. 

These, then, are the true portraits of the 
three people who were “ exactly like every- 
body else,” and, no doubt, the description is 
as correct as descriptions which people make 
of each other are wont to be; for few of us 
have any real notion what our closest ac- 
quaintances are like with their masks off, and 
there is a mask taken off every night behind 
nine out of ten bedroom doors in the United 
Kingdom — of that be assured. 


3 


CHAPTER III. 


At an early hour on the following fore- 
noon Mr. Morell was being ushered into the 
private parlour at the back of a certain house 
in the City — well known for its extensive op- 
erations on .all European money-markets — 
where he had lately been a constant visitor. 
He entered the apartment with his usual elas- 
tic tread; for want of spirit had never been 
his failing, and, in face of the crisis so near 
at hand, he had felt the need of pulling him- 
self together. Besides, he had slept well and 
breakfasted well, and he could not yet be- 
lieve that fate would dare to brave him to 
the end. Yet, despite his obstinate con- 
fidence, it was a relief when, after five long 
minutes, a step came down the passage. It 
shuffled a little behind the door — somehow he 
did not quite like that shuffle, — and then a 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


31 

jovial, blowsy man, who looked far more like 
a better sort of farmer than a stockbroker, 
entered rather noisily, clearing his throat, 
blowing his nose, and scraping his feet on the 
mat, all at the same time. 

“ Ah, Mr. Morell, I was expecting you,” 
he boisterously exclaimed. “ You told me 
not to wire; so I didn’t.” 

“ The Brazilian Star shares all right, are 
they not?” asked Mr. Morell, startled by the 
quaver in his own voice. 

“ Sorry to say they’re not ; but you'll have 
better luck next time, no doubt,” he added 
hurriedly, partly from force of habit and partly 
because he hadn’t the proper feelings for a 
stockbroker, which means having no feelings 
at all, and that he was honestly sorry for his 
client, though very far from aware of the 
death-blow he had dealt in those few words. 

“ You mean that they have failed to 
rise? ” 

“ Failed to rise would have been a joke, 
my dear sir; down again, flat down on their 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


32 

bellies they are, and not likely to find their 
feet again in a hurry. It’s a bad loss, I fear; 
but, as I say, next time ” 

“ Then you consider them absolutely done 
for? ” asked Mr. Morell, in a strangely thin 
voice, caused by a sudden feeling of physical 
faintness. 

“ Dished! I was only waiting for your in- 
structions before selling out, for they are 
sinking hour by hour, and it’s as well to save 
what can be saved. Wait a bit. I’ve got the 
last telegrams here.” 

It was probably some rudimentary feeling 
of delicacy which caused the bucolic-looking 
individual to begin fumbling among his papers, 
with his back turned to Mr. Morell. 

During these minutes Mr. Morell was on 
the verge of doing half-a-dozen different 
things, all of them unreasonable, — of crying 
out, of flying into a rage, of bursting into tears 
like a woman, of doing he knew not what; 
and if at this juncture Mr. Barker had hap- 
pened to turn round, it is certain that he 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


33 

would have rushed for the brandy — there was 
always brandy kept ready on the premises 
for people who came to that back-parlour, 
and it was wanted at least once a-day — but 
on the very verge of the breakdown some- 
thing came to Mr. Morell’s aid which was 
either pride or vanity, or a mixture of both, 
and which just saved him from the ignominy 
of exposure. The problem was how to get 
out of the room without any loss of dignity; 
every further analysis of the situation must 
be postponed until this end was accomplished. 
He waited for a few moments longer, aware 
that it would be too risky to speak just yet, 
and during those moments the rustling of Mr. 
Barker’s papers, and the rumbling of the car- 
riages in the street, echoing but faintly here, 
seemed to blend themselves in his ears to a 
chorus of mocking devils. In the small yard 
at the back of the old-fashioned house there 
stood a sickly laburnum, sparely clothed with 
leaves, as sere and yellow as though it had 
been autumn instead of spring; he looked at 


34 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


it so long and so hard that he took a hatred 
to laburnum, which clung to him to the day 
of his death. Nevertheless he succeeded in 
giving his instructions almost coherently, 
even though his voice didn’t seem quite to 
belong to himself. It was at the last mo- 
ment that Mr. Barker, taking courage to look 
into his visitor’s face, felt suddenly moved to 
suggest the brandy. He had observed vari- 
ous changes of colour before in this very 
back-parlour, but never anything exactly like 
this greenish-grey tint. But the brandy was 
declined almost haughtily, and two minutes 
later Mr. Morell was standing on the pave- 
ment, staring up and down the street with 
curiously vacant eyes, as though he had for- 
gotten what he was there for, and heedless 
of the jostlings of the passers-by. 

“The next time!” he was saying to him- 
self under cover of the street noises and with 
a ghastly-looking smile pulling his white lips 
from side to side. “ That fool doesn’t know 
that there is no next time for me.” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


35 

The sight of an empty hansom seemed 
suddenly to arouse him from his trance, and 
though, in making a step forward to hail 
it, he gave a strange lurch in his gait, as 
though he were the worse for drink, he yet 
reached its side in safety and gave the ad- 
dress of his solicitor. 

It was a long drive to Mr. Ridge’s office, 
and the din of the street stunned him to-day, 
as though this were his first visit to town. 
But he was glad to be stunned; he did not 
want to think just yet. It was only when 
he reached the office that the sight of the 
familiar walls and of the familiar countenance 
above the desk broke down with one blow the 
false insensibility behind which he was at- 
tempting to ensconce himself. 

“ I’m done for, Ridge! ” he cried out, sink- 
ing into his accustomed arm-chair and letting 
his face do what it liked. “ This time I’m 
done for! ” 

The countenance above the desk was elder- 
ly and neutral, both in tint and expression. 


36 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


It looked on unmoved, though respectfully, 
at Mr. Morell’s display of emotion. 

“ You have come to tell me, sir, that the 
chance you spoke of has failed? ” he asked, 
in a voice that was as colourless as his washed- 
out grey eyes, and having waited till he con- 
sidered the right moment come. 

“ Utterly failed! It was my last card, and 
I’ve played it.” 

“ You will remember that I always con- 
sidered the investment a risky one.” 

“ Never mind that — never mind that now, 
in God’s name, but tell me whether there is 
anything else to be done? ” 

“ I doubt it,” said Mr. Ridge calmly. 

“ But something, surely, something! ” in- 
sisted Mr. Morell, with the feverish warmth 
which was beginning to succeed to the first 
chill of despair. “ Don’t sit there so quiet, 
man ! Think again ! If a loan could be 

raised ” 

“ And the security? ” 

Mr. Morell sank back again in his chair. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


37 

After a long pause he asked, in a small, 
uncertain voice — 

“ And Skeffington will have to go? ” 

“ I see no alternative.” 

“In other words, I am bankrupt?” 

“ I am afraid there is no other word for 
it;” and for a moment or two the distracted 
eyes of the client and the neutral eyes of the 
solicitor met in complete silence. 

“ Will it have to be soon? ” asked Mr. 
Morell in that same small voice. 

“ I do not think I can manage to post- 
pone the — the end more than a few weeks, 
— three, or perhaps four. I have strained all 
possible threads already, almost to breaking- 
point; but the creditors have been kept out 
of their money too long, they are become as 
unmanageable as hungry dogs.” 

“ And may something not happen before 
the end of these few weeks? ” asked Mr. 
Morell, with a characteristic catching at even 
this ghostly ray of hope. 

“ Nothing but a miraculous chance, such 


33 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


as a big loan, for instance. But no sane per- 
son lends fifty thousand pounds without se- 
curity, and nothing short of that will pull 
us out of the hole, even for a time.” 

“ I know, I know,” agreed the despondent 
man. 

“ Three weeks, you said, or four? Make 
it four, Ridge, I beg of you. So four weeks 
is all that remains to me.” 

He was still rather dazed when, at the end 
of the interview, he made his way down the 
stairs, and the stupefaction lingered with him 
as he mechanically ate his luncheon at the 
usual table in his club, but already he was be- 
ginning slowly to realise. The train which 
bore him homewards sped through fields 
where ploughmen could be seen at work, and 
where he could almost smell the new-turned 
earth in passing whiffs, for the month was 
April, and all hands were busy out of doors. 
On the other days it had amused him to catch 
these passing glimpses of agricultural life, and 
to try and guess at the patent of the imple- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


39 


merits the labourers were using, even as he 
flew past; but to-day each plough was a mote 
in his eye, and each grazing cow a nuisance, 
since each served to remind him that the 
things of the soil were no longer any business 
of his. 

As he caught a prophetic glimpse of him- 
self in a London lodging, with perhaps two 
hundred a-year and a wife and daughter to 
support, he shuddered and shut his eyes. Of 
course there was always one resource, for 
who can force a man possessing a revolver 
and the necessary charge to be a pauper 
against his will? Mr. Morell possessed a very 
excellent and finely engraved revolver, on 
whose chased steel surface the light played 
with wonderful effect, and lately he had more 
than once caught himself thinking of this re- 
volver with a quite new interest. Hitherto 
it had been only a plaything; was it possible 
that there lay the solution of his difficulties? 
The thought just swept across his mind, to be 
laughed away by common-sense. In reality he 


40 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


was less afraid of dying than of being declared 
bankrupt, but nevertheless he had no mind 
whatever to die. 

Luckily the moment of coming to a de- 
cision was still four weeks off, and although 
he supposed it to be inevitable, he yet found 
an unreasonable relief in the thought of this 
respite, for he was one of those men who can- 
not help but procrastinate. 

The dogcart was waiting for him at the 
station as usual. Everything was exactly as 
usual — the groom’s respectful salutation, the 
glossy horse, the well-kept avenue down which 
the dogcart bowled so smoothly — but every- 
thing bore a new signification for him to-day. 
For how much longer would this dogcart be 
his? What remarks would the groom make 
to the coachman when he learnt that the 
master was “smashed up”? Who would 
be bowling down this avenue this time next 
year? 

It was with a species of groan that he 
alighted at the door, and, still deep in thought, 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


41 


walked across the hall and straight into the 
drawing-room, not distinctly knowing where 
he was going, and unconscious of the hum of 
voices which might have warned him of the 
presence of visitors. When he awoke to the 
situation it was too late to retreat. There 
was nothing for it but to come forward and 
profess himself delighted with this meeting 
with the fussy little woman and her three 
beaming, red-cheeked daughters who had 
driven over to tea. 

“ But not to tea only,” explained Mrs. 
Stanger shrilly, when with a supreme effort he 
had succeeded in making the requisite num- 
ber of bows, “ though nobody does make tea 
like Mary for miles round; but I was just tell- 
ing her about the little dance we are arranging 
for next week — a mere carpet-dance, you know 
— just to console dear Fanny and Maggie and 
Addie for not being able to get to town this 
season. I must do something to keep them 
quiet, you know, or else they'd simply bolt; 
and they are so anxious to have Esme too, 


42 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


the sweet children! You know what hearts 
they have! But here is Mary making diffi- 
culties; and yet after the dinner yesterday 
you can’t say she isn’t ‘ out,’ and dear Fanny 
and Maggie and Addie will be so disappointed * 
if she does not come. What do you say, Mr. 
Morell? Please help me to reason with Mary; 
only a carpet-dance, remember; and it is to be 
called the Dance of the Exiles, because it’s 
meant to cheer up all the unfortunates out of 
London.” 

She paused, breathless, twisting her head 
about among her laces after the manner of a 
hen pruning her feathers. Her loose, brown- 
ish-grey hair somehow also suggested feathers, 
and the shrill cackle in which she spoke com- 
pleted the idea of the British domestic fowl, 
which undeniably hung about her plump, rest- 
less person. 

“ Just so; only a carpet-dance,” repeated 
Mr. Morell, rather blankly. He had some dif- . 
ficulty in concentrating his mind on this new 
subject. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


43 

“ You consent, do you not? Never mind 
what Mary says! ” 

Mary was saying nothing at the moment, 
but, from behind the shelter of the tea-urn, 
had, ever since her husband’s entrance, been 
furtively watching his face. 

“ What does she say? ” asked Mr. Morell, 
sinking wearily on to a seat. 

“ That Esme is too young,” &c. 

Mrs. Stanger talked on for three more min- 
utes on end, during which time Mr. Morell, 
instead of listening to her, looked wistfully 
across the room to where the three Miss Stan- 
gers had got Esme well in their midst, and 
were evidently doing their best to inflame 
her imagination with visions of the carpet- 
dance. 

“ It’s very unselfish of me to invite her,” 
he at last heard Mrs. Stanger saying, “ for I’m 
half afraid she’ll pocket a few of my own girls’ 
partners.” 

This, happening to tally with his own 
thought, succeeded in rousing Mr. Morell. 


44 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


All at once he began to understand what was 
being talked about. 

“ By all means, yes; why shouldn’t she 
go? ” he exclaimed, with sudden alertness. 
“ Let the child have her fun while she 
may! ” 

“ But, Robert, we had meant to wait until 
Esme was eighteen,” timidly objected Mrs. 
Morell. 

“ Eighteen? Pooh! That’s a whole year 
off. Who knows whether any of us will be 
alive this time next year! Nothing like seiz- 
ing the moment by the hair of the head — ha, 
ha! Yes; we shall certainly join the exiles, 
Mrs. Stanger, and mind you have plenty of 
partners for Esme! ” 

He laughed rather excitedly, and gulped 
down half a cup of tea. 

“Leave that to me — leave that to me!” 
cackled the delighted Mrs. Stanger. “ We 
have some charming young men on our list. 
And now that I’ve conquered, I must be off 
to beat up more exiles. Fanny, Maggie, 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


45 

Addie, where are you, my dears? It’s time to 
say good-bye.” 

While she bustled out of the room with 
her brood of chickens around her, and while 
the ceremony of departure was going on in 
the hall, Mrs. Morell sat alone in the drawing- 
room, with her eyes fixed expectantly on the 
door. Would Robert come back or not? That 
was what she was asking herself. 

He did come back, just as the carriage 
passed the window; but he had not returned 
to make disclosures, as she saw at a glance. 
The flush of false gaiety was still on his cheek, 
and the somewhat convulsive smile still on 
his lips, a thin mask which the wife’s eyes 
easily pierced. 

“What a rate that woman talks at!” 
he remarked, with would-be alertness, and 
she could see how his lips twitched as he 
spoke. 

“ Robert,” she said, upon some sudden im- 
pulse, not of curiosity, but of overpowering 

pity, “ what has disturbed you? You look un- 
4 


46 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

happy about something. Have you had bad 
news? ” 

She was quite astonished at herself when 
she had spoken. It was so long since she had 
permitted herself any such indiscretion as this, 
and she could not understand what had pushed 
her to speak to-day. Robert himself was ob- 
viously equally astonished, but he did not look 
pleased. 

“ What on earth makes you think that I 
am distressed? ” he asked, hurriedly. 

“ Your looks, Robert,” faltered the poor 
woman, growing as red as a girl, “ and your 
manner lately. I thought there might be 
difficulties, but I did not like to trouble you 
with questions; but to-(Jay it seems so evident, 
and if there was anything I could do ” 

She broke off in alarm, painfully aware 
that her sentences were getting entangled. 
The habit of repressing rather than expressing 
her feelings was so deep-rooted by this time 
that she had positively forgotten how to do 
the latter thing. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


47 

And yet even those few broken words had 
sufficed to cause Mr. Morell a moment of hesi- 
tation. There would be a certain relief, no 
doubt, in disburdening himself of the truth to 
anybody, even to Mary; but almost simultane- 
ously came the thought of the humiliation, and 
the relaxing lines about his mouth hardened 
again. No, not until the force of circumstances 
compelled him to it, would he confess his fail- 
ure. Up to the very last day of these four 
weeks of grace would he still remain in her 
eyes the same successful man he had been all 
his life. 

“ Nonsense, Mary! ” he said, almost rough- 
ly, as he turned away. “ There is certainly 
nothing you can do, nor any need to do any- 
thing. You have never taken any interest in 
business matters, you know, and you wouldn’t 
understand. Quite right, you were not to tor- 
ment me with questions. I recommend the 
same policy for the future. By the way, what 
day did Mrs. Stanger say for the carpet- 
dance? ” 


48 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ Tuesday,” she replied, instantly with- 
drawing into her shell. Her heart was big 
with unspoken words, as she wistfully watched 
the man she had once loved slowly moving 
about the room. Never since the early days of 
her marriage had her heart so yearned over 
him as it did at this moment, and although 
the emotion was compassion and not love, it 
almost made her believe for a moment that she 
could love him again, if only he were unhappy 
enough, and were in enough need of her; but 
as to putting the thought into words after the 
rebuff just received, that was as impossible to 
her as to commit a murder. She therefore 
said nothing except “ Tuesday,” and a mo- 
ment later added, probably by way of reassur- 
ing Robert that there were no more questions 
coming — 

“ I should have liked to keep Esme in 
longer, but since you wish it ” 

“Pooh! you can't call a dance at Mrs. 
Stanger’s coming out.” 

“ A dance may be the beginning of so many 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


49 

things,” she sighed, scarcely aware of what 
she was afraid. 

“ So much the better, if it is a beginning,” 
said Mr. Morell, with a womanishly hysterical 
laugh. “ Let her pick up a husband if she can, 
by all means; ” and he went out, still laugh- 
ing joylessly to himself. 

“ Any sort of husband,” he meanwhile com- 
pleted his reflections. “ Supposing one of Mrs. 
Stanger’s charming young men were to en- 
gage to provide for her future, what a burden 
off my mind! Let her make hay while the sun 
shines. Who’ll invite her to a carpet-dance, 
I wonder, when I’m declared bankrupt?” 


CHAPTER IV. 


When Esme came down ready dressed for 
the dance, her father and mother began by 
exchanging a quick glance (a thing which fa- 
thers and mothers are apt to do on these oc- 
casions), but their reflections were neverthe- 
less radically opposed. 

“ She may make her fortune yet,” was what 
Mr. Morell said to himself, while the question 
which the mother’s heart instinctively asked, 
and asked in fear and trembling, was, “ Who 
will be the man to love her? ” For it was quite 
evident that she was not a woman destined 
to remain unloved. 

The soft white stuff of her childishly sim- 
ple gown — an adapted dinner-gown, since 
there had been no time to order an elaborate 
ball toilette — seemed the silken sheath from 

which the opening bud has scarcely slipped, 
50 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


51 

while the half-parted glistening lips and the 
almost too slender neck completed the deli- 
cately flowerlike impression which was the 
chief characteristic of her beauty. She was 
beautiful, indeed, as she stood thus looking 
from father to mother with the flush of ex- 
pectation on her cheek, and a look half-laugh- 
ing, half-alarmed in her exquisitely moist blue 
eyes; and young — oh, so young! — not older 
than the April day itself. 

In reality the moment of appearing before 
her parents was the most triumphant moment 
of the evening, for once in the ballroom, and 
surrounded by more brilliant or more striking 
apparitions, Esme ceased to be conspicuous. 
Not that there was anything insignificant in 
her appearance, but that the many exquisite 
details which went to make up this face, “ all 
composed of flowers,” were too finely shaded 
and too delicately worked out to tell at a dis- 
tance. 

Mr. Morell, despite his fatherly vanity, was 
just a trifle disappointed when he saw Esme 


52 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


among the other girls, and was able to com- 
pare the faintly-tinted face with the more 
brilliant roses on the cheeks of Fanny, Maggie, 
and Addie Stanger, and the childishly slender 
figure of his daughter with their well-developed 
busts. Certainly she looked almost too ridicu- 
lously young to be figuring in a low dress. He 
would have liked her to make a decided effect 
to-night, even though it were for the first and 
the last time. Everything should have con- 
curred to-day to make what would probably 
be his last appearance in society as brilliant as 
might be, for the man was so constituted that 
he could taste the pleasure of the moment, 
even though knowing that bitterness must fol- 
low. It actually tickled his fancy to see his 
neighbours smiling at him in such complete 
unconsciousness of the impending catastrophe. 
Did really not one of them see the shadow 
of the axe which was suspended above his 
head, held only by a thread ready to snap at 
any moment? He himself saw the axe wher- 
ever he moved, but he had come here mean- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


53 

ing'to enjoy himself once more in his life, to 
taste his social importance for the last time; 
and, despite the axe, he almost succeeded. 

The carpet-dance was wonderfully well at- 
tended for the season. People who either 
could not or did not want to go to London, 
and people who had not yet gone, had all 
answered to Mrs. Stanger’s call. Some starts 
had even been postponed, for the fussy little 
woman was an excellent hostess, and the sup- 
pers at Rumbleton were known to be as good 
as any in town. Mr. Morell, wandering from 
room to room, seemed to take a bitter satis- 
faction in acknowledging the excellence of the 
arrangements. When again would he see such 
judiciously tempered lights, such well-served 
refreshments, such inviting-looking whist- 
tables? It was at one of these latter that he 
sank down at last, in answer to a call for a 
fourth hand. He had gazed his fill at the 
dancing-room, and Esme was provided for, 
since Mrs. Stanger had kept her promise about 
the partners. He had just seen her standing 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


54 

up for the first quadrille with an unknown 
black-haired man, whom he supposed must be 
a stranger in the neighbourhood, and who, 
despite his severely correct evening-dress, 
somehow struck him as being too picturesque 
for an Englishman. 

More than an hour passed before the rub- 
ber was over and he again thought of strolling 
back to the dancing-room. It was the mo- 
ment of a pause between two dances. Where 
was Esme? Over there, on a low seat, and 
a man was talking to her, — why, it was again 
the black-haired fellow of the first quadrille; 
but what of that? Ten to one he had not been 
near her in the interval. Mr. Morell turned 
away and gave no further thought to the sub- 
ject for the moment. 

Half an hour later, in the supper-room, 
he came upon his daughter just in the act of 
receiving an ice from the hands of a man who 
had his back to the room. The man had to 
make way for a passing couple, and in doing 
so half turned his head. Mr. Morell once more 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


55 

recognised the dark face, which was almost 
the only strange one in the room to him, and 
at last his paternal attention began to be seri- 
ously aroused. 

“ Who is that dark fellow over there? ” 
he inquired of the man nearest him. “ The 
clean-shaved one with the eyeglass. I don’t 
seem to have seen him before.” 

“ I daresay not,” was the reply, “ since he’s 
only come home lately. It’s Dennison of 
Stedhurst, don’t you know? ” 

“ Tom Dennison’s nephew, you mean, who 
has come in for the property? ” 

“ Just so; but he doesn’t seem much in- 
clined to sit down upon it — too slow for him, I 
expect.” 

“ Wasn’t there something wrong about 
his mother? ” asked Mr. Morell, after a pause. 

“ There was this much wrong about her, 
that she was Spanish, to begin with, and that, 
furthermore, they quarrelled like cat and dog; 
but, on the other hand, there must have been 
a good deal right about her, considering that 


56 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

she brought a million and a half to Dennison 
on her marriage. He met her when he was 
attached to the Embassy at Madrid, you 
know.’ , 

“ So this young man gets ” 

“ No, has got — considering that he was 
left an orphan at fifteen, and unhampered with 
brothers and sisters. I call it a disgusting in- 
stance of the partiality of fortune. What need 
had this young Croesus of his uncle’s estate 
into the bargain, on the top of his own money- 
bags? No wonder he is blase at twenty-five! ” 

“ Is he only twenty-five? ” repeated Mr. 
Morell, looking curiously across the room at 
his daughter’s companion. At sight of the 
way in which he bent towards her a sudden 
thrill of excitement ran through his veins. All 
that he had just been learning placed the at- 
tentions which Mr. Dennison of Stedhurst was 
obviously paying Esme in a quite new light. 
Possibilities that were almost too dazzling to 
be contemplated were already beginning to 
trouble his incorrigibly sanguine spirit. The 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


57 

possessor of a million and a half in love with 
Esme — or, let us say, only struck with her — 
what might it not lead to? He resolved to 
be more observant for the rest of the even- 
ing. The man himself had not prepossessed 
him at first sight; but since hearing that he 
was Dennison of Stedhurst he had forgotten 
what it was that he had not liked about him. 
Watching him more attentively now, he had 
begun to understand why he had struck him as 
picturesque. It was not his face, which, de- 
spite the intensely black eyes, was too thin 
of feature to be called good-looking; rather 
it was a certain indolent grace about his sin- 
gularly well-proportioned frame, a peculiar ease 
of attitude which yet was not slovenliness, very 
rarely found in a representative of the Anglo- 
Saxon race. Beside this man with the lithe 
elastic-looking limbs, the arms and legs of the 
sturdy young squires who pushed past him 
looked almost as though fashioned out of 
wood, and worked with wires, and they them- 
selves painfully conscious of the fact, while 


58 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

Mr. Dennison scarcely seemed aware that he 
possessed any such appendages, which prob- 
ably was the secret of his managing them so 
well. It is only in certain Southern countries 
that this type of figure and of movement is to 
be found, the countries that painters, and more 
especially sculptors, go to when they are in 
search of classical attitudes, and know that 
they may find what they want, even in the 
man who herds the donkeys or cleans the 
boots. Costume, doubtless, bears a chief part 
here, and no man can hope to look classical 
in an English evening-coat; it is enough if he 
escape being ungraceful: and this, at least, 
might be asserted of Mr. Dennison. Despite 
the disadvantages of the unlovely garment, 
there was no mistaking that the figure be- 
neath it need not have shamed a young 
Greek god. 

But as for the face, it showed nothing of 
godlike serenity; human, on the contrary, es- 
sentially human, and too old for its age, the 
lines about the thin lips too nervously mobile, 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


59 


the dark eyes too restless in their search for 
something which they did not find. The fea- 
tures, clean-shaved, might have belonged to 
an actor or a priest; it was a face which at- 
tracted some people and repelled others, but 
one at which every one looked twice, whether 
in approval or disapproval. 

Just at the first moment Esme had been 
a little alarmed when the tall dark stranger, 
who looked so much older than his age, had 
asked her for a dance. Even her inexperienced 
eye had immediately detected the man of the 
world, and she asked herself aghast what she 
could possibly talk about to such a one. With 
Willy Stanger or Bobby Dutton, with whom 
she had played at funerals and weddings in 
days gone by, she would have felt' much more 
at her ease. But the first few minutes reas- 
sured her. 

“ Should you rather begin, or do you leave 
the choice of the subject to me? ” Mr. Den- 
nison said, as he took his place beside her, for 
the music had not yet struck up. He spoke 


6o 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


with perfect fluency, and only a very slight 
foreign accent. “ I can talk politics in mod- 
eration, and I can describe five European capi- 
tals from personal observation. I also know 
a little about music. On the whole, I think 
I am strongest on the capitals — what do you 
vote for? ” 

Esme glanced at him doubtfully, to see if 
he was laughing at her. It is true that his 
lips were so thin that they could scarcely 
help looking ironical, but, right through the 
restlessness of his black eyes, there neverthe- 
less shone a kindly light, which unaccountably 
gave her courage. 

“ I think I should like best to hear about 
the music,” she ventured. 

“ Ah! ” and he gave her a sharper, more at- 
tentive glance; “is that the way your tastes 
lie? We shall talk about music some day, if 
you like, but not within hearing of that dread- 
ful piano. I wonder how much they pay the 
fellow for an hour’s jingling? You don’t call 
that music, do you? ” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 6l 

“ I — I rather liked it,” stammered Esme, 
truthful but confused. 

“ Aren't you making a mistake? Was 
it not the dancing you liked, and not the 
jingling? That’s pardonable, at a first 
ball.” 

“ How do you know it’s my first ball? Did 
mamma tell you? ” 

“ You told me yourself.” 

“ When?” 

“ When you accepted me so politely as a 
partner. Nobody is polite to the other sex 
except at a first ball. Manners are quite de- 
mode , you know. But don’t lose heart,” he 
added, still in the half-bantering tone of a 
grown-up person addressing a child, “ you’ll 
learn in time.” 

Esme began to laugh without quite know- 
ing why. She had most exquisite small teeth, 
and when she laughed you got delicious 
glimpses of them. 

Mr. Dennison began to wish that he had 

made her laugh sooner. 

5 


62 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ Do you know all the people in the 
room? ” he asked abruptly. “ I don’t. Who 
is that elderly young lady who is trying so 
hard to look unconcerned as to the chances 
of a partner? What a time she must have 
spent in her dressing-room to-night! Judging 
from her method and materials, I should say 
it must take her quite thirty minutes to get 
rid of ten years, and she has had to get rid of 
twenty! ” 

“ You surely don’t think she paints? ” 
asked Esme aghast. 

“ I can even give you the address of the 
shop where that particular shade of rose is 
to be had.” 

“Oh, how dreadful!” 

“ Not in the least. That’s another thing 
you’ll learn in time. Just listen to the cluck- 
ing of our excellent hostess! Have you ever 
seen anything more like a hen who has found a 
fat worm on a dung-hill? It must be some- 
thing special in the partner line that she is 
anxious to divide among her precious chicks. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 63 

See how Fanny and Maggie and Addie flock 
about her! ” 

This time he looked confidently at Esme, 
hoping to see the tiny white teeth again, but 
instead he encountered a slight frown and a 
shade of rising colour. 

She was enjoying herself so well in Mrs. 
Stanger’s house that to compare her to a 
clucking old hen struck Esme as disloyal, even 
traitorous. 

“ Why do you make such unkind re- 
marks? ” she found courage to object. “ Addie 
and Fanny and Maggie are my friends.” 

Mr. Dennison looked at her in slight sur- 
prise, but he did not seem displeased. Evi- 
dently this was not the right way to make 
her laugh. 

“ Another thing to learn! ” he said be- 
neath his breath. 

“ I beg your pardon,” he remarked aloud, 
“ I am always forgetting that this is your first 
ball.” 

He bent a little nearer to her as he spoke; 


64 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

he had only just perceived how long and thick 
were the silken lashes which veiled her eyes. 
They were too fair in colour to make much 
effect at a distance, but they added an ex- 
quisite detail to her beauty. 

“ It is funny, is it not, that you should be 
an exile at your first ball? he presently re- 
marked. “ I’m told that everybody here is 
an exile, and that this is their special feast. 
What is it we’re supposed to be exiled from, 
by the way? ” 

“ From London, I believe. The season is 
just beginning, you know.” 

“ Ah, and are you not yearning to be 
there? ” 

As he spoke his restless eyes were explor- 
ing her face with a curiously eager scrutiny. 

“ No, I don’t think I am. I have so many 
friends here, and I should feel so strange there, 
— more like an exile than here, I think.” 

“ And yet London is not so bad of its 
kind,” mused Mr. Dennison, with a sudden 
shadow upon his features. “ I thought noth- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 65 

ing could be more delightfully wicked than 
Paris, but I changed my mind when I saw 
your London drawing-rooms.” 

“ Are you not an Englishman? ” asked 
Esme, a little bewildered. 

“I? I am whatever you like to call me. 
What can a man be who had an English father 
and a Spanish mother, who was born in St. 
Petersburg andeducatedat half-a-dozen places? 
I think you might call me an exile with great 
truth, — not a sham exile, mind you, like these 
revellers here to-night, but a real exile, if an 
exile means fitting in nowhere in particular.” 

He was speaking gravely for the first time, 
gravely and somewhat bitterly; but even while 
Esme looked at him in wonder, he was laugh- 
ing again, more Rightly than before, and she 
thought she must have been mistaken in think- 
ing him so serious. 

At the moment of cloaking, Mr. Morell 
saw the opportunity he had been looking for. 

“ I have only just discovered that we are 
neighbours,” he said, as unconcernedly as he 


66 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


could, to the young man who was busying 
himself with Esme’s wraps. “We have a few 
people coming to dinner on Friday; I hope 
you’ll be of the number. Your uncle was such 
an old chum of mine that I should like to make 
better acquaintance with his nephew.” 

Mr. Dennison bowed silently in response, 
and the invitation was understood to be ac- 
cepted. 

“ Can’t help if it looks barefaced,” mut- 
tered Mr. Morell to himself. Under ordinary 
circumstances he had far too good taste to be 
so precipitate, but time pressed too fearfully 
to allow of any stickling at a shade of delicacy. 

At the sound of her husband’s words Mrs. 
Morell’s heart had sunk, for she also had made 
inquiries concerning this man. She had heard 
the same story about his wealth, and she had 
also heard other things; for “ I should advise 
you to be careful ” had been whispered to her 
by her informant. “ I’m told he ought to be 
marked 4 Dangerous! ’ What can you expect, 
after all, of a young man with so many op- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 67 

portunities! ” and the lady in question, who 
possibly would have preferred to see the dan- 
gerous man busying himself with her own 
daughters, looked expressively at the ceiling. 

The fact of his wealth alone would have 
been enough to prejudice Mrs. Morell against 
him — marking him out, as it seemed, as the 
rich man of her imagination, to whom her 
daughter’s happiness would have to be sacri- 
ficed; and now this whispered warning on the 
top of it! That Robert should favour him was 
only to be expected from his words of the 
other evening. The mother’s heart was full 
of anxious thoughts, while in the father’s, 
meanwhile, a new-born, still half-incredulous 
hope was springing up. What the evening 
had brought seemed almost too good to be 
true. He had scarcely been able to command 
his voice as he gave the invitation, and, seeing 
it accepted, he could have embraced the man 
for very joy. 

Thus during the whole long drive father 
and mother sat side by side thinking of the 


68 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


same thing, but thinking of it very differently; 
while on the seat opposite, Esme, between the 
pleasant excitement produced by music and 
movement and a pleasant weariness of limb, 
sat with her fair head thrown back against the 
cushions, not forming any coherent thought, 
and only vaguely aware that after to-night 
everyday life might possibly seem a little flat, 
and that what had satisfied her yesterday 
might fail to satisfy her to-morrow. 


CHAPTER V. 


Mr. Dennison had described himself best 
when he said that he fitted in nowhere. 

Perhaps it was the mixture of races in 
him, or more likely the jumble of impressions 
and the contradictory influences brought to 
bear upon his childhood, which was answerable 
for the state of chronic unrest in which he 
lived. His beautiful, hot-blooded mother had 
not long been satisfied with the sincere, yet, 
in her opinion, far too well-governed affection 
which her Northern spouse had bestowed on 
her, and had, after a series of domestic scenes 
provoked by her overwhelming jealousy, at 
length succeeded in goading the long-suffering 
Englishman into suing for a judicial separa- 
tion. This was in Charles’s eighth year; and 
from thenceforward his childhood, which, like 
the true son of a diplomat, he had spent a 

69 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


70 

little everywhere, lost even that semblance of 
a permanent home which is so essential to the 
comfort of early years, and so influential in 
the formation of character. Handed back- 
wards and forwards from one parent to the 
other, keenly aware of the unnaturalness of 
this mode of life, and not yet able to grasp 
the necessity of it, generally rejoining his fa- 
ther at some fresh post or finding his mother 
at some new watering-place, whither she had 
gone to restore her excitable nerves, his in- 
stinctive pleasure in life poisoned by the all- 
pervading bitterness of two beings whose 
hot love had turned to hotter hate, and all 
this in that enervating atmosphere of luxury 
which in itself tends to suffocate natural im- 
pulses — how could his spirit reach its proper 
growth? 

He learnt to read the truth in his father’s 
disdainful silence as much as in his mother’s 
unguarded outbursts, and, by dint of seeing 
how mercilessly North and South condemned 
one another, he came to the conclusion in his 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


71 


poor bewildered child’s brain that goodness 
and virtue, and at any rate charity, could have 
no real existence among any nation of the 
world. Very early he had understood that, 
instead of forming a bond between these two 
dissimilar characters, he was only an object- to 
quarrel over — a mirror in which to reflect mu- 
tual dislikes; and he suffered from this con- 
sciousness as only a precocious and sensitive 
child can suffer, for the boy, brought up under 
this high pressure of unhappiness, could hardly 
escape being precocious. 

As yet he had not attempted to judge be- 
tween his parents, but the moment would have 
to come soon. When he grew a little older 
he must of necessity take his stand either on 
one side or on the other: this he vaguely felt, 
yet shrank from looking the question in the 
face. But the moment never really came, for 
fate spared him the supreme decision by 
carrying off father and mother in one 
year, and leaving him at fourteen alone in 
the world. 


72 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ Alone in the world ” is in this case only 
a figure of speech; for heirs to a million and a 
half pounds sterling are never let alone, 
whether they wish it or not. 

There now began the third and final period 
of Charles’s boyhood. Until now it had been 
his parents who had snatched him from one 
another; now it was the relatives of those 
dead parents who took up the game. Spanish 
aunts and English uncles vied with each other 
as to who should have the custody of the 
precious minor, and again it ended in his being 
divided between them. The same animosity, 
the same bitterness, the same outbursts of na- 
tional antipathy, called out this time by mis- 
trust of each other, and underlaid by an in- 
finitely baser motive, since hatred always re- 
mains more respectable than the greed of 
money. Long before he had crossed the line 
which separates boyhood from youth, Charles’s 
unnaturally sharpened eyes had* seen through 
it all, and his reason had therefrom formed 
its estimate of human nature. He was not yet 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


73 

eighteen when a pretty little brown-eyed Span- 
ish cousin, three years his junior and still in 
short petticoats, had given him a rendezvous 
under a pomegranate-tree, and had then and 
there made open love to him; and when in a 
movement of honest disgust he had flown out 
at her, she had got frightened and confessed 
that it was her mother who had given her the 
idea — a thing which, knowing his aunt Blanca, 
he readily believed. A year later, when stay- 
ing with some cousins in England, and being 
almost touched by the affection shown him, he 
had successfully stumbled into a trap laid for 
his generosity, and whose contrivance betrayed 
the true British business instinct. 

At twenty he was already a disenchanted 
man, whose youthful mouth was even now fall- 
ing into the habitual folds of the cynic’s smile. 
In the highly-strung character of his nervous 
organisation he might have stood as a type of 
his time, for it is by unnatural pressure that is 
developed this almost sickly sensibility, which in 
his case was heightened by the receptiveness of 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


74 

an artistic temperament, for — more Southern 
than Northern in this — music had, even in his 
early boyhood, been his one unmixed pleasure. 
Natures that are both nervous and artistic are 
generally the most susceptible to the influence 
of the other sex, and with Charles Dennison 
this was the case in a supreme degree. He was 
not only subject to woman’s power, but de- 
pendent on it to a point which often fright- 
ened himself. Speaking in this sense, there 
are two sorts of men: men to whom women 
are a luxury, and those to whom women are a 
necessity; men who can do without women, 
and men who cannot, — and Charles was an ex- 
treme example of the second category. 

Such men require their mothers and their 
sisters as imperiously as they will later on 
depend upon their mistresses, and will not die 
happy unless acquaintance with a daughter’s 
love completes their experience of all the avail- 
able forms of female affection. Now Charles 
had only known maternal love distorted by 
hate, he had never had a sister, and already 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


75 


he trembled at the thought of the disappoint- 
ments which his first mistress might bring 
him, even while knowing that they would have 
to be risked. 

Put into possession of his fortune, there 
was a moment when youth and health and 
strongly-coursing blood, triumphing over his 
early world-weariness, threw him headlong 
into the whirlpool of mere vulgar enjoyment. 
But this, too, was only a phase: in proportion 
as he gorged himself with pleasure, early re- 
pletion set in, and with it the uneasy awaken- 
ing of his better instincts; for all through his 
unnatural childhood, all through the dissipa- 
tions of his early manhood, something had re- 
mained healthy within him. And the point to 
which his instinct once more led him back was 
i Woman, — not Woman in the vulgar sense in 
which he had got used to viewing her since 
his plunge into the whirlpool, but Woman in 
a high and noble sense. Women were at once 
his danger and his hope, and everything would 
depend upon the special woman into whose 


76 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

hands he would ultimately fall. So instinc- 
tively aware of this was he himself that, despite 
the experiences already gained from fortune- 
( hunting mothers and daughters, despite the 
many recoils of disgust and disillusionment, 
he felt himself obliged ever and again to re- 
turn to them, to examine each single speci- 
men he met, with a certain morbid curiosity 
which left him no peace. He lived in the atti- 
tude of constant looking out for the right 
woman, for the woman who could save him 
from himself, from the cankering disbelief in 
humanity, and from the undisciplined move- 
ments of the voluptuous blood inherited from 
his Southern mother. An obstinate belief that 
this right woman existed somewhere — the 
woman who would love him for himself and 
not for his money — survived his most humili- 
ating experiences. Hence those many experi- 
ments on the other sex which had earned for 
him the epithet of “ dangerous,” but which 
were in reality the unquiet, half-despairing en- 
deavours of a soul to find its mate, and with it 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


77 

its salvation. But even these endeavours were 
intermittent, for there could not fail to come 
moments when the absurdity of being “ in ear- 
nest ” on fifty thousand a-year struck him with 
irresistible force, and caused him to lapse into 
doing as the others do. 

It follows, from all this, that his cynicism, 
both of speech and expression, was not nearly 
so real as he himself supposed, — it could not 
be, so long as that obstinate hope still lived. 
It was the people who saw through him that 
were attracted by this rather perplexing young 
man, and it was those who did not see through 
him that were repelled. 

So used had he become to the attitude of 
expectation, that he could scarcely meet a 
woman under thirty without looking at her 
expectantly, with the half-formed thought in 
his mind, “ Perhaps this is she? ” — provided, 
of course, that she was at least fairly good- 
looking, for he was beset with the true artistic 
fastidiousness of the senses. 

When at the Dance of the Exiles his eyes 
6 


7 8 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

had fallen on Esme Morell, this same question 
had risen in his mind, and, almost more from 
force .of habit than from anything else, he 
had begun his usual closer examination of the 
object. The course of the evening had brought 
him none of those shocks which were by this 
time so familiar; but what of that? How 
often had he been duped by just such dewy 
debutante eyes, whose owner, while pretending 
to find some difficulty in the process of adding 
two to two, had yet been subsequently con- 
victed of having not only known the sum of 
his income to a penny, but even of having 
carefully planned its expenditure, after his 
hoped-for capture! Should he pursue his ex- 
periments further? Perhaps it was a strain 
of English doggedness in his half-Spanish 
blood, or perhaps it was a vision of silken 
lashes lying on a childishly pure cheek, which 
caused him to decide in the affirmative. Mr. 
Morell’s invitation had almost succeeded in 
warning him off. At sight of the thinly-veiled 
eagerness, the much-hunted parti had had some 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


79 

difficulty in not grinning in the other man’s 
face; but he had remembered in time that the 
father’s worldly wisdom did not necessarily 
prove anything against the daughter. 


CHAPTER VI. 


Charles Dennison arrived at Skeffington 
on Friday in a state of uneasy curiosity. The 
evening would probably bring him revelations 
as to the character of his latest discovery, cal- 
culated to shatter the dream that was begin- 
ning to trouble him — so he told himself with 
his artificial cynicism. He was her neighbour 
at table, as he had expected; but, although 
he put her through a skilfully-veiled course of 
cross-examination regarding her tastes, habits, 
likings and dislikings, “ exploring ” her, as he 
was wont to term the process, the dinner 
ended, somewhat to his astonishment, without . 
his having made any specially alarming discov- 
ery. She was more of a listener than a talker, 
indeed; but her answers came so readily, and 
sometimes so awkwardly, as to be evidently 

unprepared, and were so many glimpses af- 
80 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


81 


forded him into the most entirely untouched 
child’s soul which he was aware of having 
yet come near. 

She was not flirting with him either, a dis- 
covery which at first reassured him, but later 
filled him with a vague unreasoning fear. Sup- 
posing the impression he was every moment 
more vividly aware of was one-sided? And 
this thought put another tone into his voice 
and lit a keener spark in his eye, as, regardless 
of the notice he might be attracting, he busied 
himself exclusively with his neighbour, at- 
tempting to discover that which he was not 
yet sure of desiring. But, strive as cunningly 
as he might, the child’s eyes remained untrou- 
bled, her bearing serenely unconscious. It 
was not until the latter part of the evening 
that he saw another look on her face. 

On their entry into the drawing-room the 
gentlemen found a sleepy matron in possession 
of the piano, half-nodding over the keys. 

What she was playing was called a sonata, 
but, judging from the effect both upon her- 


82 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


self and upon her audience, it deserved to be 
ranked as a lullaby. Mrs. Morell and her only 
other lady-guest, for the small party had been 
hastily organised as a screen to Mr. Morell’s 
true motive, having nothing particular to say 
to one another, had long ago abandoned the 
effort of coining remarks, and leant back in 
their respective chairs wearily wishing for the 
end of the evening. Esme was indeed wide 
awake, but there was nobody to talk to until 
the gentlemen came, when she hoped that Mr. 
Dennison would go on telling her about Spain 
and Italy. It was a hope quite unconscious of 
an after-thought. He talked well, and he had 
a way of making her talk with a freedom which 
she had never before found in herself, — that 
was all she thought of as, right through the 
drowsy music, she listened for the opening of 
the dining-room door. 

When the door opened at last the matron 
at the piano broke off suddenly, clean in the 
middle of a passage, and looked round her in 
an astonished manner, which suggested that 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 83 

for the last few minutes, at least, she had been 
playing in her sleep. Mr. Dennison gave one 
apprehensive glance in her direction, and took 
up his position as far from the piano as pos- 
sible. 

“Come, Mrs. Bennett,” said Mr. Morell, in 
his favourite playful tone, rendered wonder- 
fully light by the observations he had made 
during dinner, “ you’re not going to deprive 
us of the end of that sonata, are you? Is our 
appearance so alarming as all that? It’s cruel 
of her, isn’t it, Dennison?” 

“ Heartless,” replied Mr. Dennison, with a 
curious contraction of the lips. 

Mrs. Bennett murmured something indis- 
tinct and rose heavily from the piano. 

“Ask him to play,” whispered Mr. Bennett, 
who in thirty years of married life had prob- 
ably had as much of his wife’s sonatas as an 
average man could be expected to stand. 

Mr. Morell turned radiantly towards his 
young guest, too glad of the chance of saying 
something pleasant. 


8 4 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“What! you’re a musician, Dennison, and 
I didn’t know it? You really must excuse my 
ignorance. You see your uncle was not at 
all in that line, and I’m always forgetting 
that you’re not his son. Is it true that you 
play? ” 

“ Yes, it is true that I play.” 

“ And will you play to us now? ” 

Mr. Dennison made a movement which 
looked like a refusal, but before he had spoken 
his eyes fell upon Esme gazing at him in 
pleased expectation, ^nd an idea seemed to 
come to him. 

“Very well; I will play if you like,” he 
said quietly, and without another word he 
walked over to the piano. 

The moment his hands were on the keys 
a great change came over his face, indeed 
over his whole person. Something lit up in 
his eyes, the folds about his mouth relaxed, 
the premature agedness was wiped from his 
features, in one moment the face had become 
young and hopeful, the splendid frame seemed 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 85 

to awake to a new life, the young muscles 
to string themselves more firmly. 

With the very first chords a feeling of 
astonishment fell upon the room, for even the 
unmusical can scarcely fail to distinguish the 
master-hand from that of the blunderer. No 
one knew the name of the piece he was play- 
ing, but every one felt compelled to listen. 
The discreet yet penetrating pathos speaking 
out of those minor chords, and broken through, 
as it were, at intervals by bursts of fiery hope, 
were not things which appealed directly to 
every listener, but even the most indifferent 
was able to appreciate the perfection of the 
execution, 

At the very first moment his eyes had 
sought Esme, right across the big room, and 
during the first few minutes his glance re- 
turned to her again and again, with a ques- 
tioning, observing light in it. But even before 
the first melody had melted into a second — 
a wild war-song that sent the blood into his 
dark cheek — his eyes had ceased to seek her 


86 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


out, and the look of rapt contentment on his 
face showed that he had forgotten everything 
and every one, even Esme included. He was 
at that stage when for the true musician there 
exist only two things — himself and his instru- 
ment. 

Something within Esme had vibrated in re- 
sponse to the very first note, and now she sat 
gazing and listening in a state of wonder which 
bordered on stupefaction. Was this the same 
instrument on which Mrs. Bennett had been 
strumming only ten minutes ago? And was 
this the same man who had taken her in to 
dinner? Both seemed equally transformed. 
Had any one asked her before to-night whether 
she was fond of music or not, she would cer- 
tainly not have answered No, because she 
knew that there were certain airs which moved 
her in a way that nothing else did; but never 
until this moment had she suspected her own 
intense receptiveness to true music, never 
taken account of it as of a power in the world. 
What talent she may possibly have possessed 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 87 

had never been properly roused, and therefore 
she did not play well herself and probably 
never would, for there are other qualities be- 
sides mere sensitiveness to music wanted to 
form a real musician, and Esme’s nature was 
more passive than active, better calculated to 
mirror another’s soul than to project its own 
reflection; yet as she sat there with half- 
closed eyes, rapt in strains of melodies which 
flowed into one another, sweet, despairing, 
passionate, voluptuous, tender, but always 
true, always fraught with conviction, she felt 
troubled to the depths of her being, in a way 
she had never before been troubled. New emo- 
tions, to which she could not even give a name, 
awoke and stirred; desires which she did not 
understand made her heart beat: now a sud- 
den hunger of the soul, never guessed at till 
that moment, stabbed her like a knife; and 
again a pity as sharp as physical pain, pity 
for she knew not whom, drove the tears to her 
eyes. 

And mingled with it all was wonder at 


88 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


the player. Was it within belief that this was 
the same Mr. Dennison who had made such 
shallow and frivolous, though undoubtedly 
amusing, remarks about people, and who 
looked so bored and almost morose? How” 
steadily his restless eyes now burned, how 
high he held his head, what a reflection of joy 
and of power on his thin, dissatisfied face! 
She had not thought him handsome before; 
but now all at once, with his music in her ears, 
his countenance appeared to her more eloquent 
of beauty than any living face she had ever 
seen — more like a face in a picture, she told 
herself confusedly. He had made unkind re- 
marks about people — yes; but “ He can’t be 
really unkind if he plays like that,” she told 
herself with an instinct more infallible than 
logic. 

Long after the rest of the small audience, 
recovering from their first impressions, had 
fallen to talking again under their breaths, 
Esme sat quite still, sunk in a deep chair, 
breathlessly listening and looking. As he fell 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

into a new air his eyes once more strayed to- 
wards her, and she understood that now he 
was playing for her alone. It was a serenade 
now, one of those low, yet thrilling songs of 
love which he had learnt in his mother's coun- 
try, in whose notes you can hear the sob of 
the mandoline under the moonlit palace-wall, 
all the more passionately pleading for having 
to be hushed. Esme listened with dilated 
eyes, which could not even sink before the 
long questioning gaze that came from over 
there. As the last whispered note died away 
Mr. Dennison rose. 

A chorus of compliments greeted him. He 
suffered them with the patience of long usage, 
and waited until general talk had resumed its 
sway. Then he made his way to Esme’s side. 

“ And you?" he inquired, with a faint 
smile. “ Are you going to say nothing to me? 
I am used to compliments, I assure you." 

The light was still in his eyes and the re- 
flection of joy on his face as he looked at 
her. 


90 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


Esme sat up in her chair, almost with an 
effort. It was a deep arm-chair, in which she 
half disappeared, — a seat more suited to a 
portly old gentleman than to her slender 
figure. 

“ Did you not like my playing? ” he asked, 
observing her. 

“ I don’t know if I liked it,” she slowly 
said, looking at him with dazed eyes. “ I 
think it hurt me too much — at places, I mean; 
and also it frightened me. I didn’t know 
music could be like that.” 

“ And did it not do you good at places 
too? Were there not moments when it made 
your heart light? ” 

“ Yes, oh yes; but the pain always came 
back again.” 

He looked at her, and saw a single tear 
still hanging upon her long lashes. 

“ I am glad of that,” he said, abruptly. 

“ Glad that you gave me pain?” 

“ Yes. It means that you felt what I 
wanted you to feel; it means that you can 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


91 

feel music, even if you don’t understand it: 
that is all I wanted to know. For, don’t you 
see, that if I can pain you with my music, that 
means that I can also delight you? ” 

She leant back in the big chair with a little 
sigh of exhaustion. The question as to why 
he had wanted to know this, and why he 
should wish to delight her, was too puzzling 
to be thought out. 

“ Do you understand now why I could not 
talk about music the other day in the ball- 
room? ” he asked, after a moment. 

“'Yes, I understand. One doesn’t want 
to talk in a ballroom of things that are holy 
to one.” 

He gave her an almost grateful look. 

“ You have understood me again. 4 Holy ’ 
is a strong word for you English to use, but 
not too strong for the case. Music has been 
to me both father and mother, both native land 
and religion, and it may yet end by having to 
be both wife and child,” he finished with one 
of his broken laughs and that sudden darken- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


9 2 

ing of the face so characteristic of his mobile 
countenance. 

“ When I am at my piano I sometimes for- 
get that I am too much of an Englishman 
to get on in Spain, too much of a Spaniard 
to feel at home in England, too serious for 
society, too frivolous for the cloister, and too 
petted and spoiled for real work — a round peg 
in a square hole, in fact, as you say here.” 

Esme answered nothing this time. It was 
strange, she thought, that these confidences 
from a man whom she was ‘speaking to for the 
second time in her life should seem so com- 
pletely natural. Watching the pain on the 
dark face, she began to understand what his 
music had meant and why it had hurt her so 
cruelly. 

That evening Mr. Dennison went home in 
a state of mingled wonder and elation. This 
was the second evening he had passed in 
Esme’s society, and, instead of having discov- 
ered her to be a fraud, he had found a point 
of intense sympathy between herself and him. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


93 

True to his instinctive mistrust, he still kept 
himself prepared for subsequent disappoint- 
ment, but in the meantime his experiments 
must certainly be pushed further. 


7 


CHAPTER VII. 


But the elation was not entirely on Mr. 
Dennison’s side. Mr. Morell, too, went to bed 
that night in a state of sanguine expectation. 

It really seemed as though the “ miracu- 
lous chance ” of which the solicitor had so 
slightingly spoken, was going to step in at 
the eleventh hour and save the situation. All 
depended now on hurrying on events — by arti- 
ficial means, if necessary — for time was get- 
ting terribly short. Less than three weeks 
now remained of the interval of grace promised 
by Mr. Ridge. If it had not been for the thing 
having to be done in such a hurry, there would 
really have been no necessity for all the in- 
genuity which Mr. Morell now applied, by the 
orthodox help of picnics, tennis-parties, and 
“ chance ” meetings, to bringing Esme and 
Charles Dennison into closer contact; for, dat- 

94 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


95 

ing from that first dinner at Skeffington, the 
young man seemed as anxious for these meet- 
ings as the old one could be. But the dif- 
ference was, that the young man had time 
before him, while the old one had none. This 
obvious willingness of the subject to be op- 
erated upon filled Mr. Morell with an ever- 
growing delight, very hard to mask even de- 
cently. At moments he was compelled to 
give vent to it in Mary’s presence, even though 
knowing that she was not in a position fully 
to appreciate the grounds of his exultation. 

“ The mere fact of his not being in Lon- 
don at this moment is proof enough of his in- 
fatuation,” he said to her triumphantly on 
one of these occasions. “ Every other man 
with a sixpence in his pocket has gone. Why 
should Dennison be rusticating at Stedhurst 
if it were not for Esme? He’ll propose before 
the end of the month, I tell you. Just see 
if he doesn’t! ” 

“ Surely not so soon as that,” Mrs. Morell 
answered quietly, yet with troubled eyes. “ It 


q6 A forgotten sin. 

is barely a fortnight since we first met 
him.” 

“ Time has nothing to do with it. Any 
one can see that he is as hard hit as a man 
can be.” 

“ And she? ” said the mother, still with 
that troubled look. 

“ Esme? Bah! There can't be any diffi- 
culty there. If a girl of that age doesn't fall 
in love with the first decently good-looking 
young man who pays her marked attentions, 
then either there's something wrong with her 
constitution, or else the affair is mismanaged. 
Besides, it wouldn’t be hard to persuade her 
that she cares for him, even if she doesn't,” 
he added, thinking aloud this time, and forget- 
ting that Mary was there. 

“ Persuade her that she cares for him? ” 
she repeated, putting up her head with an 
almost defiant movement. “ Surely you would 
not have her marry him against her will? ” 

“ Of course not — of course not; how you 
do take , up one's words, to be sure! All I 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


97 

mean is, that she is certain to fall in love 
with him if she is let alone. The music will 
do it, if nothing else will.” 

“ Yes, the music! ” sighed Mrs. Morell to 
herself. 

Like all unmusical natures, she somewhat 
distrusted the emotions awakened by music. 
They were much more likely, it seemed to her, 
to be a false and flimsy travesty of love than 
love itself. “ Music has done much mischief 
in the world,” she now reflected. “ It may 
very well be that Esme is taken with him; but 
she is so young, she has seen so few men, she 
is flattered by his attentions, how should the 
child know her own mind? If only I could 
feel sure of the man himself! ” 

On this point she was still very far from 
clear. Not only was Mr. Dennison peculiarly 
calculated to produce very contrary impres- 
sions, but in this case Mrs. Morell’s usually 
correct judgment was clouded by the keen 
maternal anxiety of a women determined at 
all costs to save her daughter from her own 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


fate, and by a certain tenacity of idea which 
existed in her self-repressed nature. 

The suspicion that a financial catastrophe 
of some sort was impending had now grown 
to a conviction, and had brought with it the 
full understanding of the situation. From the 
first she had taken a dislike to the man with 
whose money it appeared that Esme was to 
be bought; indeed it would not be too much 
to say that she had taken a dislike to him 
before she had even seen him, while he was 
still a quite apocryphal personage. Since she 
had seen him he had been described to her as 
“ dangerous,” which generally means that the 
person so described is a heartless libertine. 
Could such a one be worthy of the treasure of 
Esme’s innocence? Undoubtedly there were 
moments in which a certain tenderness, almost 
reverence, in the eyes resting on her daughter 
reassured and vaguely comforted the moth- 
er’s heart, but unfortunately the glance was 
often followed by a remark or a smile which 
reawakened her chronic fears. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


99 

A question put to Esme would at least 
have cleared up the point as to her own state 
of feeling, but the idea of putting that ques- 
tion never even- occurred to Mrs. Morell. The 
habit of reserve is one which gains so irresisti- 
bly upon the human soul that, when practised 
for a length of years, there comes a moment 
when, even with the will strained to the ut- 
most, it becomes almost impossible to throw 
it off. Though ready at any moment to be, 
if necessary, tortured to death for her sake, 
Mrs. Morell had never been really intimate 
with her own child. Even to the baby on her 
knee her caresses had been given more fur- 
tively than openly; and now that the baby had 
become a woman, she felt as shy of speaking 
to her about love as though she had a stranger 
before her and the subject had been a for- 
bidden one. 

Meanwhile Mr. Dennison, troubling himself 
little about the signs around him, feverishly 
pursued his experiments. The deeper he pene- 
trated into the child’s mind, the more re- 


IOO 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


freshed and hopeful did he feel, thankful with 
the thankfulness of one who, after traversing 
miles of arid desert, has found a cool fountain 
at which to slake his thirst. 

Search as he would, he could find no mark 
of evil upon her: her mind was a white and 
unwritten page, and the elements of which 
it was composed were as natural, and there- 
fore as healthy, as was her fair young body. 
Yet long after he was sure of this, he con- 
tinued to keep up the harmless farce of tell- 
ing himself at each visit that he was prepared 
for a disappointment. His mental attitude 
at this time was not unlike that of a child 
building a brick house and watching each 
brick fearfully, expecting the crash to come 
from moment to moment, and scarcely able 
to believe that the ever-increasing edifice still 
holds. 

Since the evening of the first dinner-party 
music had naturally played a dominant part 
in their intercourse. He had quickly under- 
stood that music was the means by which he 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


IOI 


could most easily force her to betray her soul 
to him. While still vibrating from one of his 
wild, dreamy fantasias, it would have been hard 
indeed for her to hide her true thoughts, or 
to feign before him what she did not feel. 
At such moments he .felt that she was as help- 
less in his hands as a chloroformed patient in 
those of a surgeon. He knew the feeling only 
too well himself, for the same tone of mind 
which gave him the power of working on 
others made him liable to be worked upon, 
and by the same means. 

“ I will tell you exactly what you are feel- 
ing, he said to Esme one day, when he had 
just done playing a sonata of Mozart’s. “ You 
would like to take your hat at once and go 
out of the house, anywhere where there is sky 
overhead and grass underfoot, for that last 
passage has made you suddenly thirsty for 
green fields and buds and skipping lambs, and 
all the rest of it. Eve been through all that. 
Why, I give you my word of honour that I 
spent two hours on my back in a very damp 


102 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


meadow after I had heard that sonata for the 
first time, and had a stiff shoulder in conse- 
quence for a week after. But wait a little; 
I’ll keep you from doing anything so foolish. 
You haven’t heard this Dumka yet; that will 
put out the light of the green fields in a mo- 
ment.” 

He played the Russian melody, simple as 
the plaint of a child, heavy as a dirge, and 
then he said, after a pause — 

“ I learnt it from a Russian woman: she 
had a shade on her lip and a jaw like a bull- 
dog; but if she had asked me to marry her, 
I am not sure that I should have been able to 
refuse, for her notes simply went through and 
through me like arrows, far more thoroughly 
than her eyes could have done.” He paused 
again, and then added reflectively, “ Some- 
times it strikes me as rather terrible to be so 
entirely at the mercy of a fellow-creature, 
merely because of a musical sympathy.” 

Though the soul he was studying appeared 
to himself so convincingly transparent, there 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


103 

yet came moments when an evil genius still 
sought to obscure his vision. 

He had been talking to her one day about 
his desolate childhood, and inwardly revelling 
in the signs of pity and distress which chased 
one another across her tell-tale countenance, 
like lights and shadows across a summer land- 
scape, when all at once the old mistrust seized 
him. 

“ You look as if you were sorry for me,” 
he remarked, interrupting his narrative. 

“ I am dreadfully sorry,” said Esme, below 
her breath. 

He looked at her with a mixture of con- 
tradictory emotions in his eyes; then he asked 
abruptly and almost harshly — 

“You know, do you not, that I am very 
rich?” 

Esme’s eyes grew wider. 

“Yes; of course I know that you are 
rich,” she answered readily. “ If Stedhurst be- 
longs to you, you must be rich; but why do 
you tell me that now? ” 


104 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ Only that I have remarked that it is 
generally easier to pity rich people for their 
sentimental sorrows than poor people for their 
real ones.” 

“ You mean that one makes up to rich 
people more than to poor ones. I suppose 
that is true, but I hope it isn't too true. I 
shouldn’t like to think that people are so 
kind to me only because of papa’s money; 
for papa is rich too, you know,” she added 
in the most matter-of-fact little tone in the 
world. 

Mr. Dennison laughed and pursued the 
subject no further. Evidently there was noth- 
ing to be discovered in this direction. It al- 
most seemed as though the article were genu- 
ine after all. 

A few days later he had a further proof, 
or something that seemed to him a proof. 

He had found her in an out-of-the-way 
corner of the garden, busily weeding a large 
oblong plot of ground in the shadow of the 
wall. Mr. Morell, occupied with business, as 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


105 

he explained, had been only too delighted to 
direct him where to find his daughter. Esm& 
flushed with pleasure, but went on wielding her 
hoe, talking to him the while of the new rose- 
tree which the gardener had promised her, and 
of the pansies which would be in flower next 
week. 

“ You see, this plot has been under my 
care for so long,” she explained as she worked, 
“ that I can’t bear to give it up to a servant. 
Ever since I was five years old it has been 
my private garden, and it was here I used 
to bury my dolls and my dead canary-birds. 
It’s almost got something of the sacredness 
of a cemetery in my eyes, and the idea of Jem’s 
big unfeeling spade going down into the earth 
seems to me like a desecration. That’s why I 
never allow anybody to touch it. But I’m 
afraid I’ve been rather neglecting it lately,” 
she added, remorsefully. “ Just look what a 
state it is in! ” 

She stooped to remove something that ob- 
structed her path, and Mr. Dennison came to 


io 6 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

her assistance. It was a small fir-tree that 
lay at full length on the plot, rootless and half 
strangled in the newly-grown weeds. As Mr. 
Dennison pulled it aside, he saw that bits of 
ribbon and paper that had once been coloured 
still clung to the rusty branches. 

“ Why, it looks like a Christmas-tree,” he 
exclaimed, laughing. “ How did the thing 
come here? ” 

“ It is a Christmas-tree.” 

“ A Christmas-tree for pigmies, to judge 
from its size.” 

“No, a Christmas-tree for birds. I give 
them one every year, and you can’t imagine 
how grateful they are. Think; just when the 
snow is deepest and all the worms sound asleep, 
to find a table ready spread with bread-crusts 
and biscuits — yes, and almonds and nuts too, 
for I don’t see why they shouldn’t enjoy their 
Christmas feast as much as we do. I don’t 
know if they quite appreciate the ribbons and 
rosettes; but that belongs to the idea, and 
I think they are broken in to it by this time. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


107 

I sometimes hide behind that laurel bush and 
watch them perching on the branches and 
pecking away at the almonds, and sometimes 
I can almost think I hear them smacking their 
lips. You’re not laughing at me, are you?” 
she asked with sudden confusion, as she found 
his meditative gaze upon her. “ You see, 
that’s another of the things I began when I 
was five years old; and those sort of things are 
so hard to leave off, though, of course, I know 
it is childish.” 

“ No, I am not laughing at you,” was all 
Mr. Dennison said, and then he relapsed into 
silence. During that silence he was mentally 
watching ten small white fingers busy with 
the decking out of the fir-branches; then, as 
in a vision, he saw the slight childish figure 
stealing down through the dusk of the winter 
evening, half-ashamed of her mission of mercy, 
and yet revelling in advance in the pleasure in 
store for her small feathered friends; then the 
blue eyes peeping from behind the laurel bush 
to watch them at their feast: and as the pic- 


!08 A forgotten sin. 

tures passed before his mind’s eye he felt his 
heart grow unaccountably light. A bird’s 
Christmas-tree is perhaps rather a peculiar 
( proof to take of a woman’s moral worth, but 
Mr. Dennison was peculiar in some ways. Of 
all the symptoms which had told him that 
Esme was the woman he was looking for, this 
rusty fir-tree, with its rain-sodden ribbons, 
seemed to him the most convincing. 

Altogether things were going fast, but not 
yet fast enough for Mr. Morell’s taste. As 
the end of the month drew near, his terror 
came back upon him. True, it was evident by 
this time that Mr. Dennison was as good as 
captured; but so long as he had made no 
formal declaration, there remained the dan- 
ger of his being frightened off by the crash. 
And even supposing he was not frightened 
off, there would be the crash to go through 
first, and the exposure he so passionately 
dreaded. 

How different would things be if Dennison 
had spoken first, and he had been able to set- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


IO9 

tie the matter with him “under four eyes”! 
— that one humiliation he could, of course, 
not escape. The rest of the world, his own 
family included, might then never know that 
there had been a danger. How could he bring 
the man to speak before the dreaded date? 
This was the question which pressed upon him 
both in and out of his dreams. 

On one of the last days of the month there 
came a letter from Mr. Ridge which made 
him look strangely grave. Half an hour later 
his harassed mind had matured a new plan of 
action. 

During this fortnight of sudden intimacy 
between Skeffington and Stedhurst there had 
more than once been talk of an expedition to 
the latter place, which Mr. Morell had not 
visited since the death of his late neighbour, 
Tom Dennison, and which neither Mrs. Morell 
nor Esme had ever seen except from a dis- 
tance, since the late owner had been a con- 
firmed and somewhat misanthropical bachelor, 

but which yet was known to be one of the 
8 


I IO 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


most picturesque sights in the neighbour- 
hood. 

Anxiety had made Mr. Morell as keen as 
a woman in the nice balancing of possible 
causes and effects, and with a clearness of 
vision which would not have shamed the most 
matchmaking of mothers, he foresaw the emo- 
tions likely to be awakened in Mr. Dennison 
by the sight of the girl who had evidently 
won his heart moving about under the roof 
which he had apparently chosen for his home, 
and by her mere presence conjuring up visions 
of happy domesticity — helping him, as it were, 
to put into tangible shape the dreams that no 
doubt were already pursuing him. Many pro- 
posals of marriage had been precipitated, if 
not called forth, by just such influences as 
these, assisted, of course, by a few judiciously 
arranged tete-a-tete; and in his delight with his 
new idea, Mr. Morell felt almost certain that 
the recipe could not fail here. Mr. Dennison 
was expected that very afternoon with some 
music which he had promised to bring over; 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


Ill 


and before the close of his visit, thanks to a 
few judicious turns given to the conversation, 
the expedition had been arranged for the fol- 
lowing day. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Quite apart from Mr. Morell’s private 
aims, Stedhurst well deserved a visit. The 
battlemented ivy-grown keep, crowning a 
somewhat steep hill which was shaded by some 
of the oldest oaks in England, was a different 
thing altogether from the conventional mod- 
ern country-houses in the flat, well-ordered 
parks, laid out more or less after one pattern, 
which studded Blankshire for miles around. 
Even Skefflngton, though undoubtedly vener- 
able as to date, was but a barrack compared 
to the medieval charm of this typical castle 
of romance. It was just at this point that the 
flat lowlands on which stood Esme’s home 
began to swell into hills and sink into valleys. 
Stedhurst stood on the first and lowest of 
these hills, and yet high enough to command 


112 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


1 13 

the plain, and even, on particularly clear days, 
to afford a glimpse of the far-off sea. 

But the great charm of Stedhurst was in 
its waters, for the wooded hill on which it 
stood was, in point of fact, a peninsula, very 
nearly an island, round whose base a stately 
river swept with a rush so mighty as surely 
to have made the spot almost impregnable 
in the old days of sieges, and down whose sides 
several gurgling streams hurried between moss 
and boulders to throw themselves into the 
broad waters. Some people complained that 
it was impossible to take a comfortable walk 
in the Stedhurst park; and from the point of 
view of those who were either weak in the 
knees or short in the wind, this might be true, 
seeing that there was not a single entirely flat 
path within it, and considering also the num- 
ber of bridges to be continually crossed. But 
then what compensation in the glorious 
glimpses of country that were for ever fram- 
ing themselves between the hoary oak-stems, 
in the many surprises which the irregularity 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


114 

of the ground brought with it, and above all 
in the continual murmuring of water, that 
peculiarly crisp tinkle whose very sound causes 
you to see the crystal clearness with your 
ears almost as distinctly as with your eyes 
themselves! In whichever direction you 
walked, you could not get far from the water. 
As the music of one faded in your ears, the 
song was straightway taken up by a second. 
By dint of winding and turning and coming 
back again upon their path in their efforts to 
find the best road downhill, and sometimes 
dividing their waters in deference to some ac- 
cident of the soil, the little rills seemed to 
multiply indefinitely in a manner particularly 
confusing to a stranger. 

“ If I were a composer instead of only a 
player,” said Mr. Dennison to Esme, “ I should 
go nowhere else for inspiration. They sing 
dozens of songs and in dozens of keys.” 

The two were alone in the park. The 
inspection of the house and garden, as well 
as the luxurious tea served on the terrace of 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


1 15 

the castle, were over, and Mr. Morell had 
judged that the time for the tete-a-tete had 
arrived. It was easy to plead the steepness of 
the walks, and easier still to give Mary her 
orders with a glance. What more natural 
than that the host should wish to show the 
beauties of the park to his visitor, or that the 
“ old people ” should content themselves with 
the view of the sea from the terrace? 

“ There is one stream that always sings 
Dumkas,” went on Mr. Dennison, as he walked 
beside Esme down the winding path, “ and 
another that never gets beyond a lullaby. 
Some of them sob, some of them laugh, and 
there is one terribly frivolous one which seems 
to know nothing but dance-music. Listen in 
that direction; I can hear its impertinent little 
tinkle quite clearly.” 

“ And what sort of song does the river 
sing? ” asked Esme, with a happy half-laugh. 

“ The river seems to sing whatever song 
I call for; or rather I should say, it echoes 
whatever happens to be within me. It is 


1 16 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


really a chorus, you know, since it gathers all 
the small voices into itself, and there’s always 
one that predominates for me, according to 
the mood I happen to be in. When I am 
frivolous I hear only the dance-music, and 
when I am cross only the Dumkas.” 

“ And what do you hear to-day? ” asked 
Esme unreflectingly, as they stepped from 
under the trees on to the grassy margin, 
where the young blades shook softly and con- 
tinually with the unceasing sweep of the water 
that rushed past their very roots. 

“ To-day,” said Mr. Dennison, with his 
eyes upon Esme’s face, “ I hear a chorus of 
voices which I almost think are angels, and I 
am almost certain that they are singing a 
song of triumph.” 

She met his eyes and felt suddenly trou- 
bled. “ It is much ’ more beautiful here 
than at Skefflngton,” she murmured, con- 
fusedly. 

It was indeed beautiful, doubly so on such 
a day as this. The month was April, and yet 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


II 7 

this was an almost typical summer day, one 
of those solitary specimens that sometimes 
come in the middle of spring, — a June day, 
with only the June foliage awanting. The 
afternoon had been as still and hot as though 
the season were six weeks older; but instead 
of the richly tinted, broadly unfolded leaves 
that usually go along with this atmosphere, 
there was scarcely a breath of green on the 
tardy oaks, though flowers in plenty were 
heaped at the feet of the grimly naked trunks, 
their bright bloom sprinkled here and there 
with last year’s brown leaves, which this year’s 
swelling sap had only just pushed from the 
places they had held all winter in the teeth of 
the wildest storms. Every grass blade, every 
tiny leaf and bud, was too obviously brand- 
new to belong to summer. It was something 
like a child masquerading in the clothes of a 
grown-up person. The tepid motionless air, 
and the premature gnats floating over the 
ground, might deceive you for a moment, but 
you had only to raise your eyes to the branches 


1 1 8 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


overhead to see that this was April and not 
June.' 

“ It is a splendid place, certainly,” said 
Mr. Dennison; “but if it were not for the 
streams, I don’t know if I could live here. 
It isn’t as though it had memories for me, 
and it must absorb a good deal of one’s mental 
energy to keep from hanging one’s self dur- 
ing an English winter, more especially when 
there are so many oak-trees handy; and yet, 
for a man who has never had a home, there is 
a certain comfort in having one pointed out 
to him by Providence.” 

Esme said nothing. She was trying to 
imagine what life would feel like if Mr. Den- 
nison decided not to settle in England — and 
not succeeding very well. 

They wandered on in the evening light, 
in no hurry to cut short this delicious rhmble, 
sometimes mounting, sometimes descending, 
often coming out again on the borders of the 
river, and often crossing the rustic bridges 
that spanned the omnipresent streams, while 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


1 19 

Esme’s hands grew fuller and fuller of yellow 
primroses and blue periwinkles, and over their 
heads the birds, anxious no doubt to be heard 
above the gurgling of the water, sang their 
loudest. Therq were dozens of moments at 
which nothing could have been easier than to 
take Esme’s hands, flowers and all, and to say, 
“ I love you,” and nothing certainly more ap- 
propriate to the surroundings, but still Mr. 
Dennison did not speak. It was not the 
thought of the short acquaintance, nor the 
fear of being unconventional, that kept him 
back, — that, on the contrary, might have been 
an inducement; it was not diffidence either; 
it was nothing but the dislike of putting an 
end to a situation which he was conscious of 
intensely enjoying, even while knowing that 
that which must inevitably follow would be 
more enjoyable still. The tacit has often more 
charms than the explicit, and the phase before 
the declaration, a declaration whose result is 
not doubtful, has a peculiar fascination for an 
epicure in sensations. That is why Mr. Den- 


120 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


nison spoke no binding word, but continued 
to do the honours of his park after his own 
fashion. 

“ Here we are, back again at the ‘ perpet- 
ual mourner,’ as I have dubbed him,” he ex- 
claimed as they crossed one bridge. “ Surely 
anybody can hear that he’s pitched in a minor 
key. But I’m not quite sure that it isn’t more 
bad humour on his part than true grief — what 
the Americans call ‘ pure cussedness ’ ; and I 
rather fancy that it would only require a good 
clearing out of those dead branches between 
the stones, which must be very trying to his 
temper, to put him back into the major.” 

Esme laughed, and then stood still in 
dismay. 

“ Must I go over that? ” she asked in a 
tone of genuine alarm. 

They had come out on the very edge of 
another stream, which they had indeed crossed 
earlier, but at a lower point. The bridge up 
here, which the spring floods had recently 
torn away, had been temporarily replaced by 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


1 2 1 


a mere plank thrown from bank to bank. 
Through the fast-falling dusk Esme peered at 
it apprehensively, and then down into what 
appeared to be a veritable chasm at her feet, 
for a rapid falling away of the ground at this 
point had transformed the stream into a minia- 
ture waterfall. Even in broad daylight it 
would have been a giddy piece of work, and 
the shadows of evening increased the incerti- 
tude of the undertaking. 

“ I quite forgot this,” said Mr. Dennison, 
annoyed at his own negligence. “ We can 
go back, if you prefer; but it is a long way 
round, and you are probably tired. Do you 
think you could manage if you took my 
hand?” 

“Yes, yes!” said Esme, ashamed of what 
she felt sure he must regard as a weakness, 
— “ let me try; ” and she put out her hand 
resolutely. As he took it he saw, despite the 
dusk, that her face was looking rather white, 
for in truth she suffered badly from giddiness, 
and knew it. 


122 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ Perhaps we had better go round, after 
all,” he suggested. 

“ No; let me try,” she obstinately re- 
peated. He walked in advance, steadily and 
cautiously regulating his step by hers, and 
looking back from time to time, to make sure 
that she was keeping her balance. They were 
almost in the middle of the plank when he felt 
her sway, and turned just in time to support 
her against his arm. There was no margin for 
question or answer: if an accident was to be 
averted there was only one thing to be done, 
and Mr. Dennison did it without either hesi- 
tation or afterthought. So far all was natu- 
ral, even unavoidable; but when he reached the 
end of the plank, with Esme lying like a child 
in his arms, he seemed to forget why he had 
taken her up, and walked straight on, as 
though in a trance, without relieving himself 
of his burden, and oblivious of the fact that 
since he had terra firma beneath his feet the 
necessity of the situation had ceased to be. 
To him her weight was nothing, while the 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


123 

fair head resting with closed eyes against his 
shoulder, and the little hands that clung fear- 
fully to his coat, were very much indeed. How 
long he might have walked on with his de- 
licious burden he did not know; but at the 
very first turn of the path there fell a shadow 
which did not belong to the trees, and, be- 
fore he had time to form a thought, Mr. Den- 
nison found himself face to face with Esme’s 
father, whose approaching footsteps had been 
drowned in the splashing of the tiny waterfall. 

The truth was, that the afternoon was be- 
coming too long for Mr. Morell’s painfully 
strained nerves. No doubt it was he who had 
sent the young people out walking in the 
park; but as half-hour after half-hour passed 
without bringing them back again, his pa- 
tience was being slowly racked to death. A 
hopeful and yet agitated curiosity as to the 
result of his superior manoeuvrings began to 
devour his spirit. This long delay must surely 
mean something, and there came at last a 
moment when he felt that he could not await 


124 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


the natural time of explanation. At any price 
he must know what was going on on those 
winding walks, which even the leafless oak 
branches screened so provokingly well from 
the terrace above. Thus it came about that, 
leaving Mary to admire the view alone, he 
began cautiously descending the hill, looking 
about him guiltily, prepared even to play the 
spy if the opportunity offered. It was a risky 
step, considering the danger of frightening 
off the suitor; but Fate was going to be much 
kinder to Mr. Morell than his imprudence de- 
served. 

At sight of Mr. Dennison and his burden 
Mr. Morell stood still. It required a closer 
look to assure himself through the dusk that 
it was indeed Esme whom the young man was 
holding in his arms. His first conscious sensa- 
tion was one of so real an indignation that it 
drove the blood up to his withered temples, 
making him for the moment lose sight even of 
his original intention. To see that delicate 
head pillowed on the shoulder of a man who 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


125 

was not her brother, stirred something within 
him which had hitherto never had occasion 
to stir. His second sensation was of alarm, 
pure and simple; but before he had time to 
put a question, Mr. Dennison, recovering his 
wits, had gently put Esme to the ground, and 
he could see that she was not hurt. 

There was a moment of complete silence. 
Esme, who, in apprehension of seeing again 
the empty space beneath her, had kept her 
eyes tightly shut until now, still vaguely be- 
lieving herself to be on the plank above the 
water, now looked about her dazed, not imme- 
diately understanding where she was. A 
glance at her father’s severely astonished face, 
as well as the recollection of how within this 
very minute Mr. Dennison had still had her 
in his arms, brought to her a sudden compre- 
hension of the situation. A hot wave of con- 
fusion, utterly unlike anything she had ever 
experienced in her eventless life, overcame her 
irresistibly. Whatever happened, she felt that 

she could not stay for even one moment longer 
9 


126 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


between those two men, nor bear their eyes 
upon her. Murmuring something indistinct, 
she turned and disappeared along the nearest 
path. It was an open and undisguised flight, 
but to Esme there seemed to be no alternative. 

Mr. Morell had meanwhile recovered his 
presence of mind. Indignation and alarm 
had been swept aside by the thought which, 
as in a sudden flash of light, showed him his 
chance — a far better chance than he had dared 
to hope for. Some explanation was obviously 
due to him, seeing that the usages even of 
nineteenth-century society do not make it cus- 
tomary for young men to carry about young 
ladies in their arms in the dusk, a la Paul and 
Virginia. Would it ever have been possible 
to invent a more appropriate opportunity for 
asking this particular young man’s intentions? 

Esme, as she fled upwards towards the ter- 
race, could hear her father’s voice, apparently 
putting some question to Mr. Dennison, and 
only ran all the faster for fear of being able 
to distinguish the words. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


12 / 

When she reached home at last, after the 
long and peculiarly silent drive, she went 
straight to her bedroom; but instead of be- 
ginning to dress for dinner, she stood at the 
window, with her hat still on, staring and star- 
ing out at the ni^ht sky, as though she could 
not yet make up her mind to exchange it for 
the ceiling of her room. Her heart was 
beating rather faster than usual, — not that 
she expected anything definite, but that a 
strange sort of excitement seemed to lie in 
the air. There was a wonderful moonlight 
night to match the wonderful day; again a 
June night, with only this difference, that at 
the open window you could bear a jacket very 
well. The transparent sky, with the last glow 
of sunset still making a blot of colour to the 
west, the white light upon the gravel, the 
gleams of silver on the pond, — they might 
have been summer sights; and the illusion 
was even more perfect by night than by day, 
for in this light you did not miss the leaves 
upon the trees. 


128 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


Esme was still standing at the window, 
when her mother, having knocked twice with- 
out response, entered at last and found the 
room lighted by the moonlight only. She 
walked straight up to where her daughter 
stood in the brightest of the flood and took 
both her hands in hers. 

“ Esme,” she said, in a voice that shook 
so little as scarcely to betray her inward agi- 
tation, “ your father has sent me to tell you 
that Mr. Dennison has proposed for you.” 

Esme gazed back at her mother without 
a word, growing slowly pale. In this white 
light there seemed something like consterna- 
tion on her face, something almost like fright; 
and her mother, judging from her own secret 
fears, misread the signs she saw. 

“ Do not be afraid,” she said, quickly, 
“ you shall not marry him unless you wish 
it. I promise you shall be left free to choose, 
whatever your father may say. God knows 
how I shall manage, but I promise you! ” 
She had come here straight from Mr. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


129 

Morell’s triumphant announcement, and with 
the outspoken intention of forestalling any in- 
fluence he might bring to bear on the girl. 
She must convince herself that Esme was tak- 
ing the man of her own free will and inclina- 
tion, and not merely to oblige her father. As 
she now looked deep into the startled blue 
eyes, it seemed to her that her fears were 
realised. 

“ Speak to me, Esme,” she urged, uncon- 
sciously pressing the passive hands within her 
own; “ what answer am I to take your fa- 
ther? I should like to give you time for re- 
flection, but he is urgent; the decision must 
be come to at once, so he says. Think well, 
my child, before you speak. Do you think 
you could be happy as Mr. Dennison’s 
wife? ” 

Instead of speaking, Esme suddenly 
wrenched her hands away from her mother, 
and clasping them before her face, burst into 
a passion of tears. 

In a moment the fair head, hat and all, had 


130 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


been pulled down on to Mrs. Morell's plump 
shoulder. 

“ I knew it, I knew it,” she sighed, softly 
stroking Esme's hot forehead. “ You would 
like to please your father, but it costs too 
much. But never fear, my darling,” — even at 
this moment the word was uttered almost tim- 
idly , — “ if you do not care for Mr. Dennison, 
you shall never see him again. I promise 
you that he shall be sent away to-morrow, 
for ever.” 

In the same moment Mrs. Morell came 
near to being choked by the arms that were 
clasped vehemently round her neck, far more 
vehemently than she had ever known Esme 
do anything. 

“ Don't send him away, don't send him 
away!” she half-sobbed, half-laughed into her 
astonished mother's ear; “ it doesn't cost too 
much, and I am only crying because I am too 
happy! ” 


CHAPTER IX. 


“ Before allowing you to bind yourself 
irrevocably, I have considered it my duty to 
tell you how matters stand,” Mr. Morell was 
saying at about ten o’clock on the following 
morning, pale but composed, and with — con- 
sidering the circumstances — a very fair show 
of dignity. 

He was sitting in his private business- 
room, and Mr. Dennison was sitting oppo- 
site to him. The humiliating confession had 
been made; and although the loan had not 
been asked for in so many words, it had been 
made quite clear to Mr. Dennison that, unless 
he wanted to marry into a bankrupt family, he 
must be prepared to risk a sum which, though 
considerable in itself, was less than the sum 
of his yearly income. As to the magnanimous 
phrase of giving him yet a chance of escape, 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


132 

both Mr. Morell and Mr. Dennison under- 
stood this to be only a polite form. Now that 
it had come to the actual moment, Mr. Morell, 
though he managed not to betray it, felt al- 
most a little ashamed of himself; the matter 
looked more barefaced than he had expected 
it to look. But a man with a rope round his 
neck cannot stick at shades of delicacy. 

“ My dear Mr. Morell,” said the visitor, 
betraying no particular surprise, though he 
was inwardly chuckling over the disclosure 
which so completely explained many symp- 
toms that had lately vaguely puzzled him, “ I 
am irrevocably bound, not so much by what 
I said to you last night as by the chains which 
your daughter has managed to cast around 
me. It is not particularly good taste to talk 
of one’s own money; but, on the other hand, 
I am afraid it would look like affectation if 
I asked you to believe that your daughter’s 
fortune was not the object I was seeking, and 
that therefore its collapse cannot affect my 
resolution.” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


133 

He mused for a moment with his eyes on 
the ground, then looked up quickly. 

“ Does your daughter know of the posi- 
tion of affairs? ” he asked, with a change of 
tone. 

“ Esme? Good gracious, no! Not even 
my wife suspects the truth. Except my cred- 
itors and my man of business, you are the only 
man in the world who knows.” 

Mr. Dennison looked into the other’s eyes, 
and saw that he was speaking the truth. The 
treacherous doubt which had crossed his mind 
vanished again, leaving behind it a deep feel- 
ing of shame. “ That is well,” he said, with 
a breath of relief. Mr. Morell’s private aims 
were entirely indifferent to him, but it would 
have killed all the joy within him to have to 
suspect Esme of being her father’s accom- 
plice. 

Half an hour later, all having been set- 
tled to Mr. Morell’s satisfaction, Charles Den- 
nison went to seek Esme in the park, where, 
with beating heart and cold fingers that were 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


134 

too unsteady even to gather flowers, she 
awaited him; and the kiss which he gave her 
under the young green leaves, without words, 
since none were wanted yet, was the opening 
of the gate of a paradise which most of us 
have trodden for at least a little time, but 
also the end of her childhood. 

That day was the first of a series of peace- 
fully happy, miraculously smooth days which 
came to visit Skeflmgton. And not happy 
for Esme alone. It is scarcely straining a 
point to say that Mr. Morell, in his way, was 
almost happier than his daughter, for he was 
enjoying the intoxicating sensation of escape 
from a danger which had remained unknown 
to her. The bitter pill of that first interview 
with his future son-in-law once swallowed, he 
was able to give way to his delight in the 
altered situation. Mr. Dennison had shown 
himself easier to deal with even than Mr. 
Morell, in his most sanguine dreams, had 
dared to hope, and the blessing which he 
had given the betrothed pair had been tinged 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


135 

with a joy that was almost rapture. Before 
the engagement was a week old he was back 
again in all his old grooves. Merely to avert 
bankruptcy was no longer enough for him; 
with Mr. Dennison in reserve, there was no 
reason why he should not succeed in clearing 
the estate. 

And Mrs. Morell was as happy as her hus- 
band, for she too was relieved of a heavy fear. 
At the moment when she had heard Esme’s 
panting whisper in her ear, it had been as 
though a veil had fallen from her eyes. No 
woman could mistake that tone, least of all 
one who has ever loved. The haunting idea of 
a sacrifice to be made could not stand in face 
of this accent. Already at the first meeting 
on the morrow she had discovered that Mr. 
Dennison was quite a different sort of man 
from what she had supposed. Since her child 
loved him, he must deserve to be loved; and 
before many more days had passed, she was 
astonished to find how much she liked him 
herself. The explanation was very simple; it 


136 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

was only that she had learnt to look at him 
through Esme’s eyes. In the weeks that fol- 
lowed, Mrs. Morell was perfectly happy for 
the first time in her life, and for the first time 
since her marriage she lost sight of her chronic 
disappointment, at sight of her daughter’s 
greater good-luck. 

On Esme herself the effect of happiness 
was to make her grow even more silent than 
usual. She spoke less than ever, even when 
Charles was beside her; but something was 
for ever brimming up through her eyes and 
out at the corners of her sensitive mouth, and 
some inward light, which never went out, made 
her face fairer than ever to look upon. 

“ It would turn the blackest sinner in the 
world into a saint to think that it is he who 
has lit that light,” said Mr. Dennison one day, 
as he sat at her feet in the big drawing-room, 
which had been deserted in their favour. It 
was impossible to take the usual stroll in the 
park, for the prematurely fine weather had 
shared the fate of most premature things by 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


137 

collapsing ignominiously. The pertly preco- 
cious child had been forced to give up the 
finery purloined from its elders, and was now 
storming and howling over its disappointment 
with tears that, though the month was May, 
bore a suspicious resemblance to sleet. But 
it is probable that neither Mr. Dennison nor 
Esme were depressed by the weather: there 
are moments in one’s life when a sleety day 
can be even more exhilarating than one with 
a cloudless sky. 

“ But you are not a sinner,” said Esme, 
with that new happy smile which came to 
her lips so readily nowadays, as she looked at 
him with her eyes full of innocent faith. 

“ I am not a saint,” he said, suddenly grave, 
for something in her eyes had given him a 
pang of regret for many things that were past 
and that had better never have been. 

“ You will learn in time that all men are 
sinners, only in different degrees; and I am 
like the rest of them, or at least I have been 
like the rest, but that was before I had ever 


138 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


had a chance of doing like this,” and taking up 
her two hands he began to press long, cling- 
ing kisses alternately upon the inside of each 
of the small, rosy palms. 

“ That is enough, Charles,” she faltered 
laughingly, as he did not seem to grow tired. 

“ You must not call me Charles to-day. 
Carlos is more appropriate to the circum- 
stances. Englishmen don’t sprawl upon foot- 
stools at the feet of their lady-loves, — at least 
I cannot imagine an unmixed son of Albion 
doing so, without both feeling and looking 
a fool. I’m not an Englishman to-day, but I 
may be to-morrow. How can you expect any 
stability of character from a man who is called 
Carlos Dennison? That’s what they called me 
over there; and I haven’t yet made up my 
mind whether they were right or not.” 

This question of divided nationality was 
the only one on which they ever disputed. 

“Why do you say ‘ You English ' ?” Esme 
had once asked, almost indignantly. “ You’re 
an Englishman yourself.” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


139 


“ That depends entirely on circumstances,” 
he replied. “ When anything reminds me of 
Waterloo, or of the abolition of slavery, I 
always make a point of saying, ‘ It is we Eng- 
lish who did it; ’ but you can’t expect a per- 
son who has seen oranges ripening in the 
sun to speak of our London fogs. These 
are the cases in which I prefer the second 
pronoun. It’s rather convenient to have a 
choice of nationalities for occasions of this 
kind.” 

The spell of bad weather was conducive 
to such discussions, but the summer weather 
which followed — real and no-t sham summer 
weather this time — drew them out of doors 
once more, and called forth a greater variety 
of pursuits. To his astonishment Mr. Den- 
nison presently found himself with his coat off 
and a spade in his hand, working in Esme’s 
garden, and enjoying it more than he had 
enjoyed anything since he was a boy. In 
point of fact, he was not so very far removed 
from a boy in age, although until lately he 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


140 

had quite forgotten that he had been in the 
world for only twenty-five years. 

“ You must promise me one thing,” he said 
to Esme one day, when they were both at 
work in the oblong plot, looking at her very 
seriously as he rested on his spade. Then in 
answer to her questioning glance: “ It is that 
we shall have a birds’ Christmas-tree at Sted- 
hurst every year — no, don’t laugh; it was ex- 
actly on this spot that I made up my mind to 
ask you to be my wife: it was a bit of coloured 
paper that did it, I do believe;” and then he 
began to laugh himself, and they both laughed 
together out of sheer light-heartedness, as do 
children to whom everything is excuse enough 
to set them off. 

All that there was of good, of simple, of 
healthy in Charles Dennison came to light in 
these days, and all that there was of twisted 
and morbid seemed to fade away to nothing. 
Indeed much that at first sight appeared re- 
pellent in him sprang from qualities that were 
good in themselves. It was exactly because 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


141 

he had expected much of human nature and 
had been disappointed in his expectations that 
he had learnt to avenge his disappointments in 
words that sounded like mockery, and it was 
exactly because he wanted to believe in good 
women that it cut him to the quick to find 
so many bad ones. It was this feeling of de- 
ceived hope which had made him fly out so 
savagely at the little cousin who had met him 
under the pomegranate-tree when he was 
seventeen, and it was this same feeling which 
made him so intensely grateful to Esme for 
at length realising his ideal. 

Has it ever happened to you to be bask- 
ing in full sunshine upon a flowery bank, 
bathed in warm air, and telling yourself that 
it is impossible that this spotless sun should 
ever cease to shine, impossible even that even- 
ing should ever come, and even while this 
feeling of security is upon you, to notice with 
a little chill at your heart that the sunshine 
is getting paler, that the motionless leaves are 

stirred by a breeze that was not here a minute 
10 


142 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


ago, and that a white film, risen from God 
knows where, is creeping stealthily over the 
beautiful blue sky? It is scarcely a change, 
and yet it is so great a change that the world 
is no longer the same place it was a minute 
ago; and presently, while you are still asking 
yourself how this can be, you will notice that 
the golden landscape has turned grey. 

Looking back upon these days, later on, 
Esme had some difficulty in exactly retracing 
the moment at which the change began. It 
was something so indefinite, and at first so 
imperceptible, that she could not be sure when 
the uncertain dread within her had begun to 
t^ke shape. 

And yet, by dint of thinking, she fixed 
upon one day in particular which seemed to 
have been the point of departure of all that, 
afterwards followed. Charles, or Carlos, as he 
insisted on her calling him, had been in town 
on some business connected with the loan to 
Mr. Morell. It was the first time he had vis- 
ited London since the spring, though the 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


143 

season was at its height, and although he 
had more than once announced his intention 
of inspecting the new Opera Company now 
in possession of Covent Garden. As yet he 
had found it too difficult to keep away from 
Skeffington; and had not business intervened, 
it is probable that the intention would have 
remained an intention. Once in town, how- 
ever, his steps had turned naturally to Covent 
Garden. Business details were always hateful 
to him, and nothing but music could take the 
taste out of his mouth. 

And it had taken it very effectually, it 
would seem, to judge from the shining eyes 
and somewhat excited elation of manner with 
which he described to Esme the treat he had 
just enjoyed. 

“ That sort of thing is. as necessary to one’s 
spirits, from time to time, as a bath is to one’s 
body,” he explained, as he plied his hoe be- 
side Esme. “ I was beginning to get sick of I 
my own performances. When I came out of 
the gaslight into the street, I believe I was 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


144 

a little drunk — mentally of course. When I 
tell you that even / couldn't find a fault with 
their orchestra, you will understand that it 
must have been pretty good. As for the com- 
pany, they are entirely picked voices, collected 
at unheard-of prices all over the Old and the 
New World.’' 

“ And what was the opera? " 

“ The most appropriate possible — ‘ Car- 
men.' You mustn't expect me to say ‘We 
English ’ to-day. I’m feeling hopelessly Span- 
ish. I do believe they did it in my honour. 
Ah, that song of the Torreador! " 

“ I should like to see ‘ Carmen ’ some day," 
remarked Esme. 

“ No, not ‘ Carmen,' my darling. Some 
other opera, if you like, but not ‘ Carmen ’ ; 
it is too horrible a story, and too horribly 
true. It would frighten you, and you wouldn’t 
believe it. It is quite impossible that an Esme 
should understand a Carmen; and yet the 
species exists," he added, after an impercepti- 
ble pause. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


145 

“ Is Carmen such a shocking person as all 
that? ” asked Esme, laughing. 

“ She is; and the worst of it is, that ex- 
actly this particular sort of shocking person 
has a knack of making other people as bad 
as herself. Ah, my darling,” he said, with 
sudden anxiety and what looked like a change 
of subject, “ do you know what you have un- 
dertaken? To tame a man — a man with a 
wild beast in his veins? ” 

Then as he met her startled eyes: “The 
catechism tells us, does it not, that our evil 
passions are worse than beasts of prey? And 
there is no one in the world without evil pas- 
sions, I suppose. You have no easy task be- 
fore you, Esme.” 

“ You will teach me,” she said, confi- 
dently. 

“ No, I will not teach you,” he vehement- 
ly replied. “ My teaching would spoil every- 
thing. It is only by being untaught, unguided, 
and as ignorant as God has made you — by 
being yourself , in other words — that you can 


I4 6 a forgotten sin. 

lead me: remember that, and for mercy’s sake 
do not try to grow wise. Come,” he added, 
with a quick change of tone, as he threw aside 
the hoe, “ the work won’t get on to-day; let’s 
take a turn in the park instead,” and he 
walked out of the garden by Esme’s side, hum- 
ming an air out of “ Carmen.” 

When Esme was alone again, she began 
thinking over the afternoon that was past. 
What was there that was different from usual? 
Nothing apparently, except that Carlos had 
talked rather excitedly; but she knew that 
music always excited him. But why, then, 
should she think it necessary at all to pass the 
last few hours in review? She could not say, 
and yet she found herself returning in thought 
more than once to the conversation in the 
garden, and unable to come to any quite satis- 
factory conclusion. 


CHAPTER X. 


A week later she felt quite certain that it 
was not her imagination that was at fault: 
Carlos was no longer quite the same Carlos 
that he had been in the early days of their 
engagement. Not precisely that his affection 
seemed cooled, but that the new-born seren- 
ity of manner, which dated from the eventful 
day at Stedhurst, and which had sat upon him 
so well, was gone. The old restlessness was 
stealing back to his eyes, the old nervous smile 
again twitched his lips. Perhaps the serenity 
was a thing too contrary to his nature to last 
for any length of time, and only momentarily 
called forth by the reaction of his engagement. 
Esme told herself this in these first days of 
doubt, for want of a better explanation; but 
still she did not feel satisfied. 

The first real chill fell upon her one day 

147 


148 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


in the beginning of June, about a week after 
the conversation in the garden. She had ex- 
pected Carlos to come as usual, and, pending 
his arrival, had not thought it worth while 
to settle to any work; but, for the first time, 
she had expected him in vain. There was 
nothing very strange about the circumstance, 
for before this there had been days on which 
he had not found it possible to ride over from 
Stedhurst; but hitherto there had always been 
a message, and generally a bunch of flowers 
along with it, while to-day there was nothing. 
Next morning at breakfast there was a note, 
however, which, to her astonishment, was 
dated from London. 

“ I thought I could keep away from Covent 
Garden,” he wrote in hasty characters, “ but 
I find I cannot. When I saw ‘ Carmen ’ in 
the repertoire this morning, I simply had no 
choice but to take the next train. I hope you 
were not disappointed, my darling. I’ll be 
with you to-morrow afternoon, and I’ll bring 
something to make up.” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


149 

He was with her, as he said; but he came 
later than usual, having missed the earlier train 
from London, as he explained; and this time 
the alteration in his whole being, so subtle 
at first as almost to defy analysis, was unmis- 
takable. 

He was not elated this time; rather he ap- 
peared so strangely subdued that Esme, in the 
innocence of her heart, asked him whether he 
had had any bad news, though she could not 
imagine from whom, for she knew that there 
was no love lost between him and any of his 
relations. Mr. Dennison laughed a little 
gloomily as he answered, “No; no bad news.” 

“ You don’t seem to have enjoyed ‘ Car- 
men ’ as much as last time,” she remarked a 
little wistfully, vaguely aware that something 
was wrong, but not knowing where to look 
for it. “ Did they not sing so well yester- 
day? ” 

“ On the contrary, they sang better; ” and 
then he turned towards her with a quick sigh. 

“You should not have let me go to Lon- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


150 

don yesterday,” he said on some impulse, 
groping suddenly for her hand. “ It would 
have done me far more good to pass the after- 
noon with you.” 

“ But how could I prevent you, since you 
never asked my advice? ” she replied, with a 
rather uncertain laugh. 

“You should have guessed,” he said, al- 
most fretfully, pressing the small hand he held 
over his two eyes in turn. “ You should have 
told me that you required me for something 
special. That music has left a bad taste in 
my mouth. I wish I had never heard it.” 

“ Then let us chase it away with some 
other music,” said Esme, making an effort to 
shake off the vague depression that was threat- 
ening to infect herself. “ Do play me that 
waltz of Ziehrer’s which you tried the other 
day.” 

He went obediently to the piano and 
played a few bars of the waltz, then broke 
off abruptly in the middle of a passage and 


rose. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


151 

“ It’s no good/’ he said. “ I can’t keep 
my attention on Ziehrer to-day; in another 
two bars I’d have got into another melody.” 

A game of tennis was tried after that; 
but it proved to be a rather silent one, in 
which many more balls were missed than 
hit. 

It was only just before his departure that 
his subdued and apparently absent-minded 
mood gave way to another. 

''-He had taken leave of Esme, and was walk- 
ing towards the stables in order to fetch his 
horse, while she stood on the tennis-ground 
looking after him, still with that inexplicable 
heaviness at her heart, when all at once he 
stopped short, having apparently remembered 
something. In a moment he had turned, and 
was back again at her side. 

“ These are my amends for my negligence 
of yesterday,” he said, taking a small leather 
case from his coat pocket. “ I can’t imagine 
how I forgot about them.” 

Esme gazed with dazzled eyes at the three 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


152 

diamond stars which the opening lid disclosed. 
She had a good many leather cases upstairs 
in her room: the drawer had grown marvel- 
lously full since the beginning of her engage- 
ment, but none of the contents outshone these 
glittering stars; and, despite the heaviness at 
her heart, she was too much of a woman for 
her eyes not to light up in response to their 
many-coloured fire. 

“ You like them? ” asked Mr. Dennison. 
“ And yet I should wish them ten times more 
beautiful for you.” 

He bent a little nearer to her. 

“ You know that I love you, do you not? ” 
he asked, speaking low but very emphatically. 
“ You know that you are everything to me 
— everything, remember — and that I can never 
thank you enough for loving me.” 

“ I know,” faltered Esme, taken aback by 
his curious intensity of accent, and by the 
unquiet glow in the eyes fixed on hers. “ You 
have told it me often, and I believe you.” 

“ God bless you for that!” he said below 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


153 

his breath, and was gone again before she had 
recovered from her surprise. 

She returned to the house wondering, 
deeply moved, and yet not comforted. 

For two or three days after this Carlos 
came assiduously, and held himself so com- 
pletely at Esme’s orders that, but for the want 
of rest in his eyes, the early days of their be- 
trothal seemed to have returned. Then, quite 
unexpectedly, there followed another blank 
day, and another note dated from London, 
but containing this time no mention of Covent 
Garden, and only speaking in vague terms of 
a business call. Even on his reappearance at 
Skeffington he gave no closer explanation, and 
the brevity of his answers made it clear to 
Esme that he was not inclined to be ques- 
tioned. And yet even this unusual touch of 
harshness in his manner could not conceal a 
certain want of ease in her presence which, 
as nearly as it was possible to his individuality, 
tended towards embarrassment. 

Dating from that time the blank days be- 


154 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


came more frequent, and were not always 
explained, even by a note. Soon Esme got 
used, although not resigned, to not seeing 
Carlos for two or three days running — to not 
even knowing whether the interval had been 
spent at Stedhurst or in London. Fits of 
despondency and of unnaturally high spirits 
followed closely upon one another, but what 
most bewildered Esme’s inexperience was his 
attitude towards herself. Upon protestations 
of affection, uncalled for in their vehemence, 
and the reality of whose passion it was impos- 
sible to doubt, there would follow intervals 
in which he would treat her with an almost 
ceremonious respect, equally inexplicable. At 
times she would surprise his eyes, fixed on her 
with a look so strange and yearning that she 
felt moved to her inmost heart; it was a look 
which seemed to be asking for something, and 
yet what could she give him more than she 
had given him already? And on other days 
this same man appeared to forget her very 
presence for half an hour at a time. It was an 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


155 

old habit of his in moments of emotion to 
take up her two hands and to press them 
over his closed eyes; and once as he did so 
she could feel that they were wet, and yet 
she did not dare to ask him what he was weep- 
ing for. His very tastes and ideas had under- 
gone a change. A year seemed to have passed 
since, with such boyish gladness, he had taken 
his part in Esme’s pursuits; the look of youth 
was gone from his face, leaving it older even 
than it had been at the Dance of the Exiles. 
There was no more work in the garden now 
— only hours at the piano, and other hours, 
sometimes silent and sometimes loquacious, 
spent under the shade of the summer trees. 

It was a stray mention of that rusty old 
fir-tree, whose discovery in the garden had 
amused and touched him so greatly, which 
best showed Esme the difference which a 
few weeks had made in the tenor of his 
mind. 

“Are there any firs at Stedhurst?” she 
had asked. “ There seem to be only oaks. 


I $6 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

We shall have to import one from here for 
our birds at Christmas/’ 

“ We shan’t be at Stedhurst at Christmas,” 
he had replied. 

“ But, Carlos, why not? Where shall we 
be?” 

“ At some place where the sun shines,” 
he said, with that new irritation of manner 
which seemed to be growing upon him. “ I 
should never be able to face an English 
winter.” 

“ Then what will the birds do for their 
tree? ” 

“ They will have to do without it, I sup- 
pose.” Evidently the subject had lost its in- 
terest for him. 

By this time Esme was beginning to ac- 
knowledge the truth to herself: Carlos was 
drifting away from her — against his own will, 
it would seem, but not the less irresistibly. 
For as long as possible she had fought against 
her fears, shutting her eyes to signs that would 
have enlightened a more experienced woman; 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


157 

but now at last she understood, beyond mis- 
take, that some power outside her knowledge 
was slowly but surely drawing away from her 
the man she loved. As yet her fears were all 
her own. Not even to her mother had she 
breathed a word of them; it was not in her 
nature to do so. As she had been silently 
happy, just so silently was she now unhappy — 
silently but not so resignedly as her mother 
had been under somewhat similar circum- 
stances. Some of her mother’s qualities she 
possessed, — for instance, those same capabili- 
ties of self-sacrifice; but, despite the flower- 
like face, not the same innate meekness of 
spirit. Perhaps the difference between mother 
and daughter was rooted only in the differ- 
ence of their two faces, in the instinct of the 
beautiful woman who claims her rightful share 
of the inheritance of love, and who therefore 
cannot be contented with the fate to which 
the plain woman has been able to submit. It 
is by chafing against it that she suffers more. 
Nothing hitherto had awakened this slumber- 

ii 


I cjg A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

ing instinct in Esme, and therefore to a casual 
observer she presented much the same moral 
appearance as did her mother; but in reality, 
hidden away in that untried heart, there ex- 
isted a far greater capability of. passion, and 
a pride, not more susceptible indeed, but of a 
haughtier colour than anything Mrs. Morell 
had ever felt. Thus, in those days of ever- 
growing doubts and fears, there came to her 
upheavings of rebellion against the desola- 
tion she felt impending, and which were not 
the less real for never finding utterance. But 
greater than the feeling of revolt was the suf- 
fering, pure and simple. Until now she had 
loved Carlos principally because she felt that 
he needed her: with women who possess the 
motherly instinct in perfection, this very often 
is the first point of departure. Now that she 
foresaw the possibility of losing him, she 
began to understand that she too needed him, 
and that to have to give him up would be 
to have done with the joy of living. 

As for suspecting the true cause of his 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


1 59 

alienation, she had not yet got so far as that. 
Any girl more precocious in this direction, 
or having read only half-a-dozen modern 
novels, would long ere this have guessed at a 
woman behind the scenes; but such a thought 
lay too distant from all Esme knew as yet 
of the world, and was too contrary to her ideas 
of loyalty and to her blind faith in the man 
to whom she had given her whole heart at 
the first asking. 

It was not until towards the end of June 
that the possibility of there being another 
woman in the case unexpectedly entered her 
mind, forcibly conjured up by some more than 
usually inexplicable remarks of Charles’s. 

They had been sitting together on a bench 
under a spreading beech, side by side, and 
silent for some minutes, when Mr. Dennison 
began to speak slowly and with apparent calm- 
ness, like one who has well weighed his words. 

“ Esme,” he said, looking straight in front 
of him, “ I sometimes think that it would be 
better for you if you did not marry me. I 


i6o 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


have told you that I am not a good man — 
though, God knows, I should wish to be so 
for your sake. It’s the old story of the spirit 
being willing and the flesh weak/’ He smiled 
faintly and without joy. “ You should marry 
some one worthier of you. I do not deserve 
the happiness of having you for my wife.” 

Esme felt a sensation as of an ice-cold 
blade at her heart, but her head went up a 
little higher as she answered steadily. 

“ If you do not love me, Carlos, as you 
used to love me — and it has sometimes seemed 
so to me lately — then certainly it is better 
that we should not marry. It would be better 
that we should part now than that you should 
be unhappy all your life.” 

She looked straight at him as she spoke, 
and for the first time he noticed the traces 
of suffering on the childish face and round 
about those tender eyes which reminded him 
for ever of two blue flowers drenched in dew. 
The sight cut him suddenly to the quick, 
abruptly upsetting his equanimity. In a mo- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


161 


ment his arm was round her, and she felt her- 
self pressed strongly to his side. 

“ Never, never, my darling! ” he cried. 
“ You do not know what you are saying, and I 
did not know what I was saying just now. 
Give up such a treasure as your love — that 
would be my ruin indeed. You know that you 
are my only hope — I have told you so often 
• — my only refuge against myself. I need you, 
Esme, I need you! Promise that you will 
never give me up!” 

“ And do you love me, Charles? ” she 
whispered, trembling with the infection of his 
excitement. 

“ As a wanderer loves the star that guides 
him,” he answered, with a curious sort of 
solemnity; “as the shipwrecked mariner loves 
the port that receives him; and that is the 
true sort of love, believe me — the only sort 
that lives, in spite of anything she may say. 
The other sort is of the earth, earthy; this 
alone can save a man.” 

Esme sat quite still, with her head against 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


162 

his shoulder, thinking over the words just 
spoken. She was woman enough to have 
marked that “ she ” — escaped, it would seem 
unawares, from his lips; and despite the ardour 
of his words, despite the arm which still held 
her so strongly, the chill had returned to her 
heart. Her mind was at work on a new idea. 
Was it possible, after all, that the key to the 
situation lay in that one little pronoun? 


CHAPTER XI. 


Next day at the same hour Mr. Dennison 
was sitting in a large and luxuriously fur- 
nished room, listening to the slumber-song 
out of Meyerbeer's ‘ Africaine.' He sat on a 
low seat, with his right elbow on his knee and 
his hand shading his eyes, as though by this 
concentration of attention not to lose one 
note of the wonderful woman's voice that 
filled the apartment, floating out through the 
open window into the square beyond. 

The room was not only luxuriously but 
also somewhat eccentrically decorated. Thus 
the wall straight behind Mr. Dennison was 
almost covered with a collection of miscel- 
laneous articles not generally to be found in 
drawing-rooms, — as, for instance, a fantas- 
tically ornamented tambourine, a gilded scep- 
tre set with coloured glass, and a crown to 

163 


!64 a forgotten sin. 

match, a decorative but rather frail-looking 
wooden oar, several daggers of various shapes 
with mock-jewel hilts, a whole variety of femi- 
nine head-gear, ranging from the embroidered 
handkerchief of the Russian peasant to the 
mantilla of the Spanish donna and the white 
linen head-cloth of the Mohammedan wife, 
while a fishing-net formed of golden cords 
was festooned into a species of irregular back- 
ground. In one corner of the room stood a 
painted spinning-wheel, while in another lay 
a heap of wreaths, fading under one another’s 
weight, and for the most part decorated with 
broad silk ribbons of every imaginable hue, 
and often with such inscriptions as these in 
gilt letters: “To the Queen of Song,” “To 
the most triumphant of all Zuleikas,” &c. 
Just such ribbons, only bleached with time, 
were to be seen all over the apartment at the 
most unexpected places, such as holding to- 
gether the crimson silk curtains, or making 
a big bow above one of the large-sized photo- 
graphs which decorated the walls. All the 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. ^5 

photographs represented a woman in costume, 
evidently theatrical: the costume varied with 
each picture, but the face was the same in all. 
On every table, great and small, vases with 
bouquets stood crowded together, and the 
mingled scent of the fresh flowers on the 
table and the fast-fading flowers on the floor 
made the air on this warm summer day as 
sweet and as oppressive as the air in a hot- 
house. It was Mr. Dennison who had insisted 
on opening at least one of the windows, for 
fear, as he said, of suffocation. 

But the most curious object in this curi- 
ous apartment was a cage of oxidised silver, 
standing in the farthest and darkest corner, 
and with something soft and yellow, and evi- 
dently alive, although it was so immovable, 
^bundled together in the background. 

When the song at the piano ceased Mr. 
Dennison did not yet move, but sat on in 
silence, with his hand before his eyes. 

The singer looked towards him and waited 
for a few moments. Then she said, “ Well? ” 


1 66 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


in a tone which told him that she was smiling 
as she spoke. 

He looked up, dropping his hand. 

“ You could lead me to the ends of the 
earth with that air,” he said, musingly. 

“ That is what I mean to do, with that air 
or with another. And I believe you will go 
willingly,” she added after a pause. 

“ Not while a portion of my senses remains 
to me.” 

“ They needn’t remain for ever.” 

She rose as she spoke, and coming for- 
ward into the light, revealed a more than com- 
monly tall and magnificently moulded figure, 
that moved with a soft, supple motion, which 
yet somehow suggested an unusual strength 
of muscle. The tea-gown, whose train she 
dragged over the carpet behind her, was of 
some soft, golden-brown stuff, with a loosely 
draped front of flame-coloured silk. The wide 
hanging sleeves showed a similar lining, while 
the same burning tint peeped out at neck 
and hem, suggesting a hidden fire, ever ready 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 167 

to break forth. The face was a somewhat full 
oval, framed in warm brown hair, rich in com- 
plexion, and lighted by a pair of brown eyes 
that, despite their melting tint, had yet in 
their depths a gleam of something that was 
neither soft nor caressing. It was the same 
face as on the photographs, only rendered in- 
finitely more beautiful by the addition of 
colour. Seen in the half light at the back of 
the room, she might have been taken for 
twenty-two, but the light from the windows 
falling full upon her face revealed marks which 
rarely come before thirty. 

On the first convenient couch she came 
to she let herself sink in a half-lying posture, 
and from under her lowered eyelids continued 
to watch her visitor. Mr. Dennison was star- 
ing straight in front of him, having made no 
answer. 

“ They needn’t remain for ever,” she re- 
peated, in her soft, rich voice, that rolled as 
exquisitely in speech as in song. “ I am quite 
ready to help you to get rid of what remains; ” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


1 68 

and she laughed as softly as she had spoken, 
and gazed down caressingly at one of her silk- 
stockinged feet, from which the embroidered 
slipper had dropped to the floor. 

Still there came no answer from the moody 
man opposite her. 

“ Why were you not in the house last 
night?” she asked, more sharply. “Did you 
not know that it was to be one of my nights 
of triumph? Zuleika always brings me more 
laurels than I know what to do with. Look 
at that heap over there, and not even a sprig 
among them from you! ” 

“ I was not in London yesterday.” 

“You should have been; you had prom- 
ised. But I sing again to-night, and of course 
you will stay. It is Carmen.” 

He made an impatient movement. 

“ Why Carmen again? ” he asked, with 
something like repugnance in his voice. “ You 
are always singing Carmen.” 

“ And am I not successful in Carmen? ” 

“You are too successful. No one who 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. ^9 

was not half a Carmen at heart could bring 
out the character with such horrible reality. 
I saw you first in the part, and to me you 
always remain Carmen.” 

“ And yet you love me! ” 

He looked at her across the breadth of 
the room which separated them. 

“ I have never said that I love you. I 
do not myself know whether I love or hate 
you; I know only that I am a plaything in 
your hands, that when I hear your voice — 
how is it that so earthly a creature should 
possess so divine a voice? — my will and my 
reason get weak, and that the thought of never 
hearing it again makes life appear blank 
to me.” 

“ There is no reason why you should 
never hear it again,” she gently remarked. 
“ It is just because of this that I want you 
to follow me ‘ to the ends of the earth/ as 
you call it.” 

“ Yes, there is a reason. I came here 
to-day to tell it you. I should have told 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


I/O 

you long ago. I am engaged to be mar- 
ried; I have been engaged for two months, 
though I was coward enough to hold my 
tongue.” 

“ I know that you are engaged to be mar- 
ried,” she replied, unmoved, though a sudden 
gleam of yellow light passed through her 
eyes. 

“ You knew it? And yet no scruple held 
you back from playing this cat-and-mouse 
game with me? You had no thought ” 

He broke off, striking his forehead with 
the flat of his hand. 

“ I forgot. I must be losing my senses 
indeed to talk of scruples to you; it is by such 
transactions as these that you live.” 

He threw towards her a dark glance, al- 
most of abhorrence, which she met smiling, 

“ Speak on,” she said lazily, settling her- 
self more comfortably among her. embroid- 
ered cushions; “give vent to your feelings. 
Such words do not hurt me. I have heard 
them before.” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


171 

“ How did you know of my engagement? ” 
he asked, sullenly. 

“ There are Society papers, are there not? 
A man of your wealth doesn’t get engaged 
without the world noting the fact; there are 
too many disappointed mothers lying in wait 
for that, you know. Really, it was rather 
simple of you to suppose me ignorant. Be- 
sides, I took an interest in the matter. That 
is quite natural, surely, since I take an inter- 
est in you.” 

“ My marriage is fixed for autumn.” He 
looked at her, as he spoke, with a glance that 
dared her to contradict him. 

“ That also I have heard, and I have heard, 
besides, that your fiancee has fair hair and blue 
eyes, and is very young.” 

He winced at the sound of her words, 
without knowing why. 

“ If you know so much, you will not be 
surprised that I have come here to-day to 
say good-bye. This ‘ musical friendship,’ as 
you are pleased to call it, must cease.” 


172 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


She laid one hand behind her dark head, 
and again altered her position among the 
cushions, while the wide sleeve, falling back, 
revealed the rounded arm beneath. 

“ Ah; so you have come to say good-bye, 
have you? ” she said, with the affectation of a 
drawl, which for the first time revealed in her 
accent the suspicion of an underbred element, 
looking him full and steadily in the eyes as 
she spoke. 

He gazed back again into those wonder- 
ful brown eyes, behind whose apparent calm- 
ness he could yet detect a smouldering fire, 
telling himself every instant that he was going 
to look away, and yet not finding the strength 
to do so. 

For more than a minute there was silence 
in the room. 

“ Julia, will you let me go? ” he asked at 
last in another, almost an imploring tone. 

The answer came low but very distinct — 

“ No, I will not let you go. I have told 
you so before.” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


173 

With a movement that had in it some- 
thing of the vehemence of despair, Mr. Den- 
nison rose from his seat, and in a few hurried 
steps reached her side. 

“ What do you want of me? ” he asked 
hoarsely. “ Why will you not give me my 
freedom? Do you want me to marry 
you? ” 

She shook her head slowly, looking up at 
him the while, as he stood over her. 

“ No, I do not want you to marry me. 
I could never make up my mind to tie my- 
self down to that extent. I have been too 
long free to be able to breathe in a cage, 
but I don’t want you to marry that other 
woman either ” 

“ I cannot marry her so long as I go on 
visiting you,” he said with a sigh. “ Though 
I am not so guilty as the world probably sup- 
poses, I am clear in. my mind that that would 
be a vile thing to do.” 

“ And that is why I mean to take you 

with me across the seas,” she continued, as 
12 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


174 

though he had not spoken, “ when my time 
here is ended.” 

“ Why me? ” he persisted. “ Are there not 
plenty of other fools ready to run where you 
want them? Will none of the others do?” 

Again she shook her head. 

“ No, none of the others will do. It must 
be you.” 

“ But why? In God’s name why? I have 
never been able to understand why you sin- 
gled me out. I am not your lover; you say 
you do not want me for a husband; why, 
you do not even pretend to love me! What 
possible description can you give of our rela- 
tionship? ” 

“ I thought we had agreed to call it a 
‘ musical friendship.’ ” 

“ You know that it is not that — not that 
alone. Did you not yourself a minute ago 
taunt me with loving you? You know that 
it is not your voice alone, but also your face, 
that has thrown this unhappy spell upon me, 
or rather that I am no longer able to distin- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


175 

guish between your voice and yourself, to 
understand where the power of the one ends 
and of the other begins. I have told you 
that I do not know whether I most love or 
hate you; but whatever I feel for you, it cer- 
tainly is not friendship. And it will not stay 
what it is now, you know that also. Another 
stage must come. That is why I say that 
until I am free of you I cannot marry her.” 

She was not looking at him now, but ex- 
amining the rings on her fingers, and when 
he paused there came no answer. 

“ Tell me,” he said impatiently, “ why must 
it be me, of all men? Is it because of my 
money? Others have got money too.” 

“ It was because of your money; why 
should I deny it? — for after all, not many 
men have your money, though it may amuse 
you to play the modest millionaire: but it is 
no longer so. Call it a caprice if you like; 
what can it matter to you why my motive 
has changed, when I tell you my intention is 
irrevocable? ” 


lyS A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

With a shrug of his shoulders he turned 
away and began pacing the crowded room. 
As he wound in and out between bric-a-brac 
tables and luxurious easy-chairs, Julia’s eyes 
followed him closely and approvingly, for a 
man who possesses beauty of figure rather than 
of feature is always seen to most advantage in 
motion. 

“ And are you really so much to be pitied,” 
she began presently in her former velvet-soft 
voice. “ Do you not know that hundreds of 
men in London would give half their fortunes 
to have even your privileges? Believe me, that 
fair-haired little girl down in the country could 
never satisfy you for long.” 

In an instant he was back again beside the 
sofa, standing above her with blazing eyes. 

“ Do not dare to speak of her,” he said 
fiercely. “ These walls are not worthy to hear 
her name, nor your lips to speak it. She is 
the one thing on earth that is holy to me.” 

“ And is she also beautiful? As beautiful 
as I am? I have told you often that I do not 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


1 77 

believe in passions that are aroused by mere 
virtues. Look at me well; is she more beau- 
tiful, or If ” 

He looked down at her as she lay smiling 
up into his face. Seen thus closely, with the 
hot flush on her cheek and her dazzling teeth 
almost too broadly displayed, there was about 
her features, as well as about the somewhat 
too free attitude, an undeniable suggestion of 
coarseness; but the picture, nevertheless, was 
so brilliant, and melted so perfectly into the 
brilliant surroundings, that the delicately 
tinted portrait of Esme, rising before his 
mind’s eye, seemed to be killed by the con- 
trast. With a groan he turned away. 

“You,” he said between his teeth. “You 
are a poison-flower whose s scent is made to 
go to men’s heads and craze them. I have 
known bad women, but never one who had 
the power you have of waking all my evil in- 
stincts, of stirring the mud at the bottom of 
my nature. When I see you before the foot- 
lights, decked with false jewels and lavishing 


178 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


your glances right and left, so triumphant in 
vigour, so flushed with health, I tell myself 
that you are the very incarnation of seductive 
sin, such as in old times they used to paint 
it in the triangular allegory of the World, 
the Flesh, and the Devil, in order to warn 
devout Christians.” 

“And why not?” she said, in a much 
lower tone, “ since but for a sin I should have 
no being at all.” 

“ What did you say? ” he asked, not hav- 
ing caught her words. 

“ Only a thought that passed through my 
head. So she is holy and I am vile; but she 
has a father and mother, and I have told you 
that I never had either. They love her very 
much, I suppose? ” she asked, with a sudden 
shade of wistfulness in her tone. 

“ I will not speak of her here; I have said 
so before.” 

“ Never mind; I can guess it. Of course, 
they love her, and her father cherishes her, 
and watches over her, and removes every stone 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


179 

from her path. Do you think it is very hard 
to remain innocent under these circumstances? 
And has it ever occurred to you that even I, 
in her place, might have been a good woman? 
Do you know what it means to be thrown 
upon the world, and told that if you want 
a place there you must fight for it? Well, 
I have got my place,” and she cast her eyes 
slowly round the gay and luxurious apart- 
ment that was literally stuffed with trophies; 
“ but does it astonish you that I should have 
gathered some bruises, yes, and some stains, 
on the way? ” 

The shadow of a new emotion had swept 
the mockery from the beautiful face, blotting 
out even the lurking fierceness in the wonder- 
ful brown eyes. 

It was the first time Mr. Dennison had 
seen her in this mood, and he looked at her 
apprehensively, as though seeing in this 
change some fresh danger to himself. 

“ If there is indeed a spot in your heart 
that is not spoilt,” he said uncertainly, “ then 


i8o 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


be merciful to her and send me away, since 
I am too weak to go alone.” 

Instantly her face hardened again. 

“To her? Never! For her I have no 
mercy. She has everything that I have not.” 

There was the sound of a low growl be- 
hind them, and something stirred in the oxi- 
dised silver cage. It was a young panther- 
cat, whom the last loudly-spoken words had 
aroused from its heavy after-dinner sleep, and 
who now peered out drowsily from between 
the twisted bars. 

“Down, Asra!” said Julia, without turn- 
ing her head. “ He is getting a little unman- 
ageable,” she remarked. “ I got this scratch 
this morning in giving him his breakfast, but 
I don’t think he will try it again. I never 
knew how strong I really was until I had 
wrestled with him to-day. It shows a good 
deal, does it not? I think I shall have to paint 
it up for this evening.” 

Mr. Dennison stood staring down at the 
fresh red streak upon the white arm, and as 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. !8l 

he looked, something in the sight of the fresh 
blood, scarcely yet congealed, stirred him al- 
most as though he too had been a beast of 
prey like Asra. The desire came over him to 
seize that wounded arm and drag it towards 
him, whether to kiss it or to put his teeth 
where the panther’s claws had been he scarcely 
knew in this moment of mental vertigo. 

“ Have you made up your mind to stay? ” 
asked Julia, whose eyes were jealously fol- 
lowing all the changes on his face. 

He roused himself with a supreme effort. 

“ It cannot be; I am going,” he said quickly. 

“ Wait until I have sung you one more 
song. I promise you that you shall go after 
that — unless you change your mind.” 

“ No, no; not that!” he cried, and laid 
his hand on her shoulder as though to force 
her back again. “ I must not hear your voice 
again to-day.” 

» “ But I choose that you shall hear it,” * 

she laughed, as, eluding his hand with a dex- 
terous movement, she rose to her feet. 


182 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ Come, Carlos; only one little song, and one 
that I know you like. Stay with me but half 
an hour longer. It is true that I do not pre- 
tend to love you — and yet ” 

She did not finish her thought aloud, but 
in her own mind she added, as she moved 
towards the piano, “ What a fool the man 
must be not to see that the game is in his 
hands! ” 

Mr. Dennison, without speaking, took his 
hat and went with set face towards the door. 
But the door was a long way off, and there 
were many turns and twists to make before 
it could be reached. He had not gone three 
steps when the first note sounded on the 
piano, and before he was in the middle of the 
room, his ears were full of the voice of the 
siren. 

“ Close by the ramparts of Seville 
Dwells my good friend Lilias Pastia ; 

I’ll dance there the gay Seguidille, 

And quaff the bright Manzanilla. 

Yes, but I must have company ; 

True pleasure shared by two must be ! 

So to the merry dance to-night 
My lover bold shall come with me ! 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


183 


My lover bold ? Ah, what vexation ! 

I quarrelled with him yesterday. 

My widowed heart needs consolation, 

And craves for love without delay.” 

t 

The liquid notes seemed to cling about 
him, holding him back as though with hands; 
and to a man whose eyes at the sound of a 
rightly struck chord were wont to dilate as 
do those of a sportsman at the noise of crack- 
ing twigs, or those of a gourmand at sight of 
an entree , no hands could have been so strong 
to hold him as those notes. Surely too, to- 
day, and despite the impudent audacity of 
Carmen’s song, there was something deeper, 
more humanly moved, in the voice, some- 
thing quite distinct from the mere technique 
of the singer, and even from the perfect 
quality of the organ itself. With this recog- 
nition his heart began to beat more fever- 
ishly; a cloud seemed to descend before his 
eyes. He was not yet at the door, and 
already his steps began to drag, while 
ever more passionately the voice rang 
out: — 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


184 


“ F ull many for my love are dying. 

But none of them for me will do ; 

And yet, alas, for love I’m sighing! 

Will you love me f I will love you ! 

Who wants a heart ? Mine may be taken ! 

Now is the time, ready am I ; 

Let the thrilling of love awaken, 

Take my hand and away we’ll fly ! ” 

The door at last. He put out his hand 
and grasped blindly for the handle, but at 
the same moment it fell nerveless by his side, 
and, sitting down on the nearest seat, he 
bowed his head in his hands as though to allow 
the flood of voluptuous music to close over 
him and drown him in its sickeningly sweet 


waves. 


CHAPTER XII. 


Although Esme had spoken no word of 
her fears, they were yet shared by some one 
besides herself. Not by Mr. Morell; he was 
far too blissfully wrapped in the happy con- 
viction of success, far too pleasantly occupied 
in reaping the fruits of what he considered 
to be his own successful manoeuvring, to have 
leisure for looking about him and studying 
details. Self-complacent natures have the ad- 
vantage of not worrying over anything but 
obvious misfortunes; and for Mr. Morell a 
thing once accomplished, especially if accom- 
plished by himself, was undoubtedly accom- 
plished. No small doubts or fears assailed 
him; nor scruples either, for the matter of 
that. But with Mrs. Morell the case was dif- 
ferent. She had done indeed with the mis- 
givings which had preceded the engagement, 

185 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


1 86 

but the tenderness with which she had par- 
taken of her daughter’s joy was far too watch- 
ful for even the tiniest symptoms to escape 
her. It was she who had become aware, 
almost before Esme herself, of some undefined 
change in Mr. Dennison — she who first felt 
the significance of his absences, and ruminated 
over the cause. The very first sign had 
aroused her motherly vigilance, and, once 
awake, nothing could put it to sleep again. 
She had noted the growing unrest in Charles’s 
glance, the slow extinguishing of the radi- 
ance on Esme’s face, and she had put two and 
two together so successfully that, long before 
the conversation on the bench, she had gauged 
almost correctly the state of the case, which 
for so long had so sorely puzzled Esme’s own 
inexperience. Perhaps it would be true to say 
that, in these days of growing suspicion and 
gathering certitude, the mother suffered 
scarcely less than the daughter, for Mrs. 
Morell possessed that desirable, or rather most 
undesirable, quality of being able to suffer by 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


137 


proxy. How put matters right? The first 
necessity was obviously to bring clearness into 
the situation, for fear of blundering in the 
dark, and destroying where she wanted to 
save. 

Evidently somebody must be spoken to; 
not Esme herself, Mrs. Morell at once de- 
cided — knowing instinctively that she would 
be met here with her own reserve in the per- 
son of her own child. There was nothing for 
it, therefore, but to speak to Robert. Once 
or twice already she had been on the point 
of speaking, and had shrunk back at the last 
moment. But at last there came a day when 
she felt that it was time to act. 

This was on the morrow of Mr. Dennison’s 
visit last referred to. It had been a long visit, 
but it had evidently brought no comfort to 
Esme; on the contrary, she looked to-day 
even quieter and more thoughtful than she 
had done of late. At sight of her face that 
morning Mrs. Morell had felt that she could 
look on inactive no longer. Mr. Morell was 


1 88 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


away most of the day, busy with some new 
undertaking, and on his return towards even- 
ing was rather astonished to find his wife sit- 
ting in his business-room, apparently wait- 
ing for him, a thing quite contrary to her 
habits. 

“ Ah, Mary,” he began in high good- 
humour, for the work had been particularly 
successful to-day, “ that’s a good idea of yours! 
I was just going to look for you in order to 
tell you that we’ll actually be done with the 
draining of the Cottlefield meadows this week. 
I hadn’t dared to hope it would go at such 
a rate. It’ll be an immense benefit to the 
estate. Really it’s quite wonderful what can 
be done with a little energy and a little 
money! ” 

He was hanging up his hat and stick as 
he spoke, and now paused instinctively for 
the felicitations he naturally expected. But 
Mary said nothing, and as he turned inquir- 
ingly towards her he saw that, whatever she 
was thinking of, it was not of the drainage- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 1 89 

works, for her face was disturbed and slightly 
flushed, and her eyes were fixed on him in un- 
mistakable distress. 

“ Anything the matter with you, my 
dear? ” he asked good-naturedly, as he let 
himself down into the comfortably padded 
chair before his writing-table. “You don’t 
look well, somehow.” 

“ There is nothing the matter with me, 
Robert, but I fear very much that something 
is the matter with Esme. I came here to 
speak to you about her.” 

“ Esme? ” he repeated, startled for a mo- 
ment. “ Is she ill? ” 

“ No; it is not for her health I fear.” 

“ What then?” 

“ Has it not struck you as strange that 
Charles should not have been here for three 
days until yesterday? ” 

“ Was he not here for three days? I don’t 

remember. A lovers’ quarrel, probably; but 

they’ll make it up, they’ll make it up, my dear, 

never fear! ” 

13 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


I90 

“ They haven’t quarrelled, and therefore 
they cannot make it up. Lovers’ quarrels 
don’t last a fortnight, and Esme has been los- 
ing colour for longer than that.” 

“ The heat, no doubt,” said Mr. Morell 
confidently. “ It’s no wonder, at her age. 
I feel quite done up myself to-day after those 
four hours in the sun.” 

“ It is not the heat.” Mrs. Morell paused 
for a moment, then with an effort she went 
on, speaking quickly — 

“ Robert, I should not like to distress you, 
but I must tell you the truth to-day, or what 
I guess of the truth. You have been too busy 
lately to observe what is going on; but I am 
always there, and I can at least see that some- 
thing is going on. Charles is no longer what 
he was at first. Listen to what I have to tell 
you.” 

And in hurried but emphatic words she 
gave him the outline of her observations of 
the last weeks, touching on Mr. Dennison’s 
absences, his vague excuses, his curious 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


IQI 

changes of mood and manner, and summing 
up the impressions she had gathered from 
these symptoms. 

She spoke with an earnestness that drove 
the tears to her eyes, and, in spite of himself, 
fixed her husband’s attention. He listened 
incredulously at first, but gradually with a ris- 
ing uneasiness, and, as he listened, certain 
circumstances of which he had taken no spe- 
cial note at the moment, rose in his memory 
to corroborate the unwelcome tale. With a 
creeping chill in his blood he began to ask 
himself whether this thing were indeed pos- 
sible? In a moment of sudden panic he even 
caught sight of the ruin of all his hopes, all 
the more cruel because of the security which 
had preceded it. He saw himself placed again 
upon the spot on which he had stood on the 
day of his return from London, that day on 
which the invitation to the Exiles’ dance 
had been given, and without waiting for the i 
rest of Mary’s arguments he burst into 
angry speech, more in answer to his own 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


192 

thoughts than to what she had just been 
saying. 

“The scoundrel!” he exclaimed, so vehe- 
mently that Mrs. Morell fell into astonished 
silence. “ Take back his word? Shuffle out 
of the affair? Is that what he is thinking of? 
But he forgets that he has me to deal with. 
He has bound himself, and I shall not let him 
go. Trust me for that! ” 

He had risen as he spoke, and had begun 
to pace the room with flushed face and long 
strides, but, having taken only one turn, his 
passion died out as quickly as it had risen. 
The dark-red colour faded from his cheeks 
as he sank down again on his chair. 

“ I don't believe it,” he said decisively, 
and with a clearing countenance. “ It is your 
mother’s heart that is running away with your 
head, my dear Mary. Because Charles comes 
here every second day instead of every day, 
you immediately conclude that he means to 
jilt Esme. The thing cannot be, simply be- 
cause it's too preposterous.” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


193 

And so, at that moment, it really seemed 
to him. Merely to admit the possibility sug- 
gested by Mary was to think of consequences 
so momentous that it became far simpler not 
to admit that possibility, more especially as 
Mr. Morell’s nature was particularly well 
•adapted for this sort of mental blindness. 

Mrs. Morell, as she looked at her husband, 
was pondering, not over his last words, but 
over some earlier ones. 

“ No doubt he has bound himself,” she 
said after a moment, and in reply to those 
words, “ but you cannot surely mean to say 
that if he wants to go you will not let him. 
You would not surely give Esme to a man 
who takes her against his will, merely to re- 
deem his word? Just think of the humilia- 
tion! ” 

Mr. Morell flushed again, as hotly as be- 
fore. “ You do not know what you are talk- 
ing about,” he said hastily. “ I tell you that, 
either with or without his will, he shall marry 
Esme. The alternative for us all is too dis- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


194 

tressing to be contemplated. There are other 
humiliations, far worse humiliations than that 
you speak of.” 

Until this moment Mrs. Morell had given 
no thought to the financial side of the ques- 
tion. Something in Robert’s tone and face 
reminded her at this moment of its existence, 
and suggested a whole background of only 
half-revealed complications. With a deep, 
tremulous sigh she turned her face to the win- 
dow beside which she sat, and immediately 
her eyes became fixed upon something below. 

The window of Mr. Morell’s business- 
room looked down on a part of the shrub- 
bery which lay at the back of the house, — 
and here, between two rhododendron bushes, 
Mrs. Morell had caught the flutter of Esme’s 
light summer gown. With anxious attention 
she watched her advance, and as the light of 
the setting sun fell full upon the pale oval 
face, a sudden and quite new fear tightened 
the mother’s heart. For weeks past she had 
been aware that Esme was not looking like 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


195 

herself, but never until this moment had she 
realised the change which so short a time had 
wrought, for the sorrow that is either too shy 
or too proud to speak, works far quicker than 
that which finds solace in words. In those 
we see daily, however dear, these shocks of 
recognition seem to depend principally on 
chance, on the fall of light, an attitude, a 
glance, or possibly also on the disposition of 
our own minds. To Mrs. Morell, despite all 
her watchfulness, full light had not come until 
this moment. It was with the completeness 
of a revelation that the recognition of ex- 
treme delicacy written upon the colourless 
face, round about the great blue eyes, and 
even in the lines of the over-slender figure, 
touched her now. Until to-day she had been 
so absorbed in sympathising with the mental 
suffering that she had almost overlooked the 
possibility of any physical danger. 

“ Robert,” she said, in so strange a voice 
that he raised his head in surprise, “ if you 
still doubt what I have told you, come here 


ig6 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

and look. Can you see her face and still be- 
lieve that all is well between her and Charles? ” 
“ What do you mean? ” 

“ Come here and look/’ she repeated. 

He obeyed in wonder, and, having reached 
the window and looked out, fell into a long 
silence. 

The ghastly splendour of the setting sun 
was still upon Esme’s face, illuminating it with 
a crude, pitiless light which painfully showed 
up its pallor and a strange languor, quite new 
to the childish features. The same listlessness 
was to be read in the attitude of her whole 
figure as, wandering aimlessly over the grass, 
plucking a leaf here, a flower there, only to let 
it drop again, she passed slowly before the 
window. It was evident that, thinking herself 
unobserved, she had abandoned the effort 
which enabled her under the eyes of father 
and mother to keep up such a good show of 
composure. That those eyes were upon her 
now she did not guess, though one glance 
upward would have shown her the two heads 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


197 

— the fine-shaped, white-haired head of the 
former man of fashion, and the homely head 
of the elderly matron — in closer proximity 
than they had been for years. 

. “ She is expecting him again to-day,” said 
Mrs. Morell, as Esme stood still for the third 
or fourth time and threw a long glance be- 
hind her, “ but the hour is past and he will 
not come.” She spoke below her breath, as 
though afraid of being overheard. 

Mr. Morell said nothing, but he watched 
the slight figure intently as it moved away 
among the lengthening shadows. Upon him 
too the panic had seized, like a contagion 
caught from the mother’s terror. That blue- 
eyed child was the only thing in the wide 
world that he had ever truly loved, besides 
himself. To sell her to a rich bidder had 
never struck him as a heartless act, but to see 
her pine — and having looked upon her face 
with his inner eyes opened, he could no longer 
doubt that she was pining — was another thing 
altogether. So sharp was the pain that as- 


Iq8 A forgotten sin. 

sailed him, that for the moment he even for- 
got the loss of his prosperity in face of that 
other loss, the possibility of which had been 
brought home to him by the sight of that 
wan face. 

“Do you believe me now, Robert ?” said 
Mrs. Morell when Esme had been watched 
out of sight. 

There were tears, genuine tears, not only 
in the old egotist’s eyes, but also in his voice 
as he answered — 

“ Yes, I believe you, Mary.” 

“ And to think that only four weeks have 
done this! I was wrong when I told you 
that there was no fear for her health. She 
has not often been ill, but she has no real 
power of resistance.” 

Mr. Morell had sat down again beside the 
table, and was shading his eyes with one 
hand. 

“ Who can it be? ” he mused aloud. “ Of 
course there is a woman in the question.” 

“ I suppose so,” sighed Mrs. Morell. To 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


l 99 

the wife, who had seen life in spite of her- 
self, the conclusion appeared as clear as to 
the former man of the world. “ He is only 
twenty-five, after all,” she hesitatingly added, 
“ and we must not forget that he has South- 
ern blood in his veins.” 

“ Blood or no blood, woman or no woman, 
he shall marry her! ” said Mr. Morell, bring- 
ing down the flat of his fine white hand on 
the table. “ The man must be secured. She 
is breaking her heart for him, and she shall 
have him ! ” 

“Yes, Robert, yes, he must be secured!” 
eagerly agreed Mrs. Morell. What she had 
just seen out of the window had sufficed, for 
the moment, to throw prudence to the winds. 
She saw only that her child was suffering for 
want of a certain thing, and her foolish moth- 

4 

er’s heart — no heart is truly motherly if it can- 
not be foolish at times — thought only of bring- 
ing back the colour to the pale face, the light 
to the anxious eyes, by giving her the thing 
she wanted. 


200 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“Something must be done; but what?” 

Mr. Morell sat plunged in thought for 
some moments longer. 

“ You say his notes during his absence are 
dated from London? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Very well. I shall go to town for a few 
days. The draining must just stand over. 
Most of our neighbours are there now, and 
they are his neighbours as well. Possibly I 
may get some clue as to the manner in which 
he spends his time there. Yes; I shall find 
it out, even if I have to play the detective, 
and when I have found it out — well, we shall 
see what happens next.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


If Mr. Morell possessed any inquisitorial 
qualities they were not brought into very 
prominent requisition on this occasion. No 
need of playing the detective here. Mr. Den- 
nison was far too conspicuous a person, even 
in the labyrinth of London, for his smallest 
acts to pass unobserved. Though he was not 
in the regular “ swim ” this year, his engage- 
ment had nevertheless been one of the events 
of the season from which he was personally 
absent. Besides, he had been seen at the 
opera, where young ladies had pointed him 
out to one another with gently resigned 
glances as “ that half-Spanish millionaire, you 
know, my dear, whp is going to marry Miss 
Morell,” and had as often as not mentally 
added, “ If it hadn’t been for that premature 
snapping-up, you and I might have been quar- 


201 


202 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


relling over him at this moment;” while the 
respective mothers examined him through 
their eye-glasses with an expression which 
said, as plainly as words could have done, 
“ What a son-in-law lost ! ” 

At the very first place of inquiry Mr. 
Morell felt the end of the clue between his 
fingers. 

He had begun by trying his luck with a 
gay young couple, near neighbours of Mr. 
Dennison’s, and living at present in the very 
thick of the London season. People as com- 
pletely “ in it ” as they were, were almost cer- 
tain to know of anything that was going on 
in the set to which both they and the master 
of Stedhurst belonged. Mr. Morell contrived 
to drop in about luncheon-time, so as to have 
leisure to guide the conversation into the de- 
sired channel. 

“ It’s been a first-rate season, I hear,” he 
remarked at a convenient moment, “ though, 
of course, only the echoes of it reach us down 
at Skeffington, through Dennison, who makes 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


203 

an occasional run up for a favourite opera: the 
boy is music-mad, you know. He has been 
to see you, I suppose? ” he added, with a very 
good imitation of carelessness. 

“ Never came near us,” replied Mrs. 
Milner, bristling with most becoming indigna- 
tion. “ I was just telling Fred that he ought 
to collar him the next time he meets him in 
the street and bring him home to dinner, in 
order to teach him manners.” 

“ He would hardly thank me for that,” 
put in Fred, with a grin which seemed to 
Mr. Morell’s watchful eye to have a double 
meaning. 

“ Ah, well, an engaged man isn’t expected 
to have manners, you know. Neither visits, 
dinners, nor balls are in his line just at pres- 
ent, and if he hasn’t dined with you he hasn’t 
dined with any one else either, I’ll be bound,” 
and Mr. Morell paused with a half-expressed 
point of interrogation in his voice. 

“ We certainly haven’t met him any- 
where,” said Mrs. Milner promptly. “ Of 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


204 

course, he has no business in a / ballroom at 
present; but the wretch might look up his 
neighbours.” 

“No doubt he is much more pleasantly 
occupied,” remarked Mr. Milner, with so boy- 
ishly mischievous a twinkle in his eye that it 
could not escape Mr. Morell. 

“ Well, I don’t think we’re unpleasant ex- 
actly,” began the irate little woman, and then 
suddenly she seemed to remember something. 
“ Oh, you mean what Lady Barnet was say- 
ing the other day,” she burst out reflectively, 
but stopped short as her eye fell on Mr. 
Morell. 

“ But I never go by her,” she added hur- 
riedly, while Mr. Morell distinctly saw the 
two young people exchange an evident glance 
of alarm at their own imprudence. 

From that moment he felt sure that some- 
thing was known concerning Mr. Dennison’s 
doings in London — something not considered 
suitable for his ears — and he became all the 
more determined to hear it. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


205 


Needless to say, his next visit was to Lady 
Barnet. He knew her as an elderly society 
gossip who, if she possessed any information 
— and she generally had all that was agoing — 
was physically and morally unable to resist 
the delight of imparting it, and whom such 
small considerations as good taste or discre- 
tion were not likely to hamper in the way in 
which they had apparently hampered the scat- 
terbrained but kind-hearted young Milners. 

Here there was no necessity for “ leading 
up.” From the moment that he entered the 
room, filled with a bevy of callers, Mr. Morell 
caught Lady Barnet’s eye fixed upon him 
with a certain predictive sparkle, which he 
knew by experience to mean revelations to 
come; and, sure enough, scarcely were the 
visitors sufficiently thinned out to allow of 
the hostess indulging in private conversation 
than she began inquiring after “ dear Esme ” 
and her “ charming fiance,” with so much in- 
terest that Mr. Morell could almost guess 

what was coming. 

14 


20 6 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ How devoted to music that young man 
must be! ” she remarked, with deep sympathy 
in voice and expression. “ I hardly ever go 
to the opera without catching sight of that 
coal-black head of his — more especially on cer- 
tain nights.” 

“ We all have our favourite operas,” said 
Mr. Morell, tentatively. 

“ And our favourite singers as well,” com- 
pleted his informant suavely, though she was 
positively quivering with the pleasure of what 
she was doing. 

“ I scarcely know, to tell the truth, whom 
they have got this year. Been so busy down 
at Skeffington that I don’t believe I have 
looked at a repertoire since spring. But I’m 
told it’s a strong company.” 

“ Very ,” said Lady Barnet, with a host of 
meanings in the one word. “ And I should 
say myself that their strength lies as much 
in their looks as in their voices. It’s a regular 
collection of beauties that Mr. Beerman has 
managed to get together this year.” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


20 7 

“ Really/’ said Mr. Morell; and in another 
minute he would have known all he required 
to know, had not a fresh incursion of visitors 
broken up the tete-a-tete , quite as much to 
Lady Barnet’s regret as to his own. 

Already he knew that Mary’s fears were 
well founded, and yet it was with a feeling of 
unmistakable relief that he regained the street. 
So it was only an opera-singer, after all ! What 
he had really feared was a serious attachment 
to some girl in society who had contrived to 
lure this most desirable husband from his al- 
legiance. That would have been a far graver 
question than a mere entanglement with a 
singer. It was a bother, of course, and might 
lead to complications; but people don’t gen- 
erally marry singers, and Mr. Morell’s own 
experience of life tended to make him lenient 
towards such passing episodes as this. 

The next few visits he paid, and the next 
few acquaintances he ran against, with small 
exception added their unit to the conviction 
that he had hit upon the right trail. The 


208 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


mention of the opera in connection with Mr. 
Dennison seldom failed to evoke either a fur- 
tive smile or a pause of embarrassment — the 
smile being generally on the lips of women, 
while the embarrassment, strangely enough, 
was more visible in the stronger sex. 

Already, by the evening of this first day 
in town, Mr. Morell began to see daylight 
pretty clearly. There remained only the final 
details to discover, and, above all, the name 
of his daughter’s rival. Having reviewed the 
means at his disposal, Mr. Morell decided to 
look up an old chum — a former “ beauty man ” 
like himself, who had more than once been 
his rival in days long past, but who, unlike 
himself, never having been able to make up 
his mind to domesticity, had found it prefer- 
able to go on living on his reputation — haunt- 
ing the ballrooms which had seen the tri- 
umphs of his youth, a superannuated butter- 
fly, who continued to flutter spasmodically 
about the flowers that smiled ironically in his 
face and tittered behind his back. This man, 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


209 

too, might be counted on to be au courant 
of interesting events. 

Mr. Morell found him in full dress, on the 
point of starting for a dinner-party that was 
to be followed by a dance. As he gazed upon 
the perfumed and elaborately combed old 
dandy, whom a “ treasure ” of a valet had 
got up to a wonderfully fair imitation of what 
is called “ ripe youth,” memories of his own 
former self came over Mr. Morell. In pres- 
ence of this perfectly appointed figure, the 
former London man, whose personal elegance 
was the pride of Blankshire drawing-rooms, 
was conscious of feeling countrified, not to 
say bucolic. 

Mr. Clinton was very pleased to see his 
old friend, but not particularly so to be in- 
terrupted at the moment of a rather belated 
departure. 

“ A question to ask me,” he repeated 
rather ruefully, glancing at his watch and 
uneasily flapping his lavender kid gloves. 
“ Won’t it keep till to-morrow? ” 


210 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ No, it won’t; and it won’t detain you 
five minutes either, unless you’re going to 
fence in your answer, which I count upon 
you not to do. It’s simply this,” and Mr. 
Morell took a steady look at his host: “ Can 
you, or can you not, give me the name of the 
woman whom Dennison visits when he comes 
to town? — my future son-in-law, you know. 
He visits some woman, I know, so don’t lose 
time in soothing assurances, and I am almost 
certain it is an opera-singer; but her name is 
what I want, and I don’t care to go to every- 
body for that.” 

This time he meant to make straight for 
the point. No need for any preliminaries 
here: much more delicate subjects than this 
had been discussed over and over again be- 
tween the two ancient chums in this very 
room. 

Mr. Clinton’s face changed a little, but it 
was evident that he too saw the superfluity 
of roundabout phrases, for he answered with- 
out hesitation. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


2 1 1 


“ Yes, of course I can tell you; it is Si- 
gnora Belveda, the new star of Beerman’s 
company, and he is there at least three times 
a- week.” 

Despite the old intimacy, it is very prob- 
able that if he had not been in such a hurry 
to start for the Duchess of Mangerton’s 
party, Mr. Clinton would not have been quite 
so plain as this. But since it was evident that 
Mr. Morell meant to have the information he 
required, the quickest way to shake him off 
was to give it him neat. 

“ I thought so,” said Mr. Morell almost 
calmly. 

It was not the first time that he had 
heard that name. He could remember now 
that so long ago as the time preceding Esme’s 
engagement it had been pronounced at Skeff- 
ington. It was one evening when some neigh- 
bours were dining there, and when the talk 
had turned on music, as it so often did in Mr. 
Dennison's presence. 

Some one had asked him whether he had 


212 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


seen Signora Belveda in “ Carmen/’ and re- 
ceiving an answer in the negative, had, so 
far as Mr. Morell could remember, remarked 
something to this effect: “ You shouldn’t 
miss her, really; to a musician like you, such 
a treat is well worth a run up to town.” 

“ Is she a real Signora or a sham one? ” 
asked Mr. Morell now. “ I mean, is she 
Italian? ” 

“ No, I’m not sure what she is — Ameri- 
can, I think I’ve heard; but without the 
twang, cela va sans dire. They’ve made her 
into an Italian for stage purposes, I fancy.” 

“ And her looks?” 

“ Her looks? ” repeated the society man, 
forgetting himself so far as actually to put 
his tongue to the roof of his mouth and emit 
a distinct cluck of surprise and rapture. “ Do 
you mean to say you haven’t heard of 
her? ” 

“ I never hear about anything nowadays, 
I am out of it all,” said Mr. Morell, touched 
with some passing emotion that had a cer- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


213 

tain family likeness to homesickness, as he 
glanced regretfully round the well-known 
room, and at the toilet-table laden with the 
hundred and one appliances which have be- 
come as indispensable as bread to the old 
beau who still clings to his place in society — 
aids and contrivances which, in the rural se- 
clusion of Skeffington, he himself had long 
since abandoned. 

“To put the matter in a nutshell, her 
looks are simply stunning,” went on Mr. 
Clinton, whom the sense of haste was ren- 
dering more and more merciless. “ A regular 
knock-downer, I tell you; figure A 1, face to 
match, and eyes — where the dickens shall I 
find an adjective for her eyes? ” and he rolled 
his own lustreless orbs from side to side in 
the almost convulsive effort to capture a suit- 
able expression. “ She wouldn’t really need 
her voice at all to help her to turn a man’s 
head, though no doubt it was the voice that ^ 
began the mischief here.” 

“ And do you think the mischief has gone 


214 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


very far? ” asked Mr. Morell with a sinking 
heart. 

“ It looks like it. Not that it is any busi- 
ness of mine to interfere, but since you have 
asked me to speak, all I can say is, If you don’t 
want that young man to slip through your 
fingers, you’ll have to keep a precious sharp 
look-out.” 

“ There can’t be any question of marriage, 
surely? ” 

“ That’s what none of us can quite make 
out. Marriage is supposed not to be much 
in the Signora’s line — she belongs to too new 
a school for that, — but it is conceivable that 
such a prize as Dennison might modify her 
principles.” 

“ It’s his money she cares for, I suppose, 
not himself? ” 

“ I suppose so. The only thing that is 
certain is, that from the first she has taken 
unmistakable pains to attract him, singling 
him out from a crowd of other worshippers. 
I should say that in this affair it was she who 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


215 

is the active element, and he the passive; and 
she’s very active, I can tell you. They say 
that no man she has fixed upon has ever got 
out of her toils whole. Ah yes, she’s a deadly 
fascinating creature ! ” 

Mr. Clinton sighed, and Mr. Morell me- 
chanically echoed the sigh; and then the two 
old gentlemen instinctively looked at each 
other, and each wondered whether the other 
was thinking of the triumphs of his youth. 

“ This is bad news,” said Mr. Morell at 
last, slowly. The relief he had felt on first 
scenting an opera-singer had given way to a 
fresh access of alarm. This was evidently no 
ordinary stage-figure ; once more the matter 
was becoming serious. 

Mr. Clinton had again begun to flap his 
gloves. 

“ You zvould have it, you know; and sorry 
enough am I that it should come through me. 
But now I can’t stop one minute longer; 
they’ll be at table as it is. Mind my words, 
and look after that boy! ” And without wait- 


21 6 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


ing to see off his visitor he vanished like a 
shadow from the room. 

When Mr. Morell reached Skefffngton 
next day, depressed and very thoughtful, the 
sight of Mr. Dennison playing a sonata on 
the piano gave him the idea of trying an ex- 
periment. A short tete-a-tete was easily enough 
managed when an hour later the young man, 
having taken his leave, started for the stables 
where his horse was waiting. 

Dennison,” began Mr. Morell, the mo- 
ment they were alone, speaking with wonder- 
ful unconcern, though with a strain of anx- 
ious expectation, “ I have been considering 
the date which we had fixed for your mar- 
riage, and it seems to me that if you really 
insist upon it, there is no reason why we 
should not have it in September instead of 
December. Perhaps it has struck you too 
that Esme has been looking rather delicate 
lately, and this would give you time to get 
her to a warmer place before the winter 
sets in.” 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


217 

The question of the date had been hotly 
debated at the beginning of the engagement, 
though the subject had not been referred to 
lately, and one of Mr. Dennison’s standing 
arguments when pressing his side of the 
question was the desirability of wintering 
abroad. 

There was a perceptible pause before his 
answer came, and, though avoiding a direct 
look in his face, Mr. Morell could not help 
fancying that he saw a quick contraction of 
the black eyebrows. 

“•In September? ” he repeated at last, very 
slowly, as though to gain time. “ Let me 
see. We spoke of December: it would be 
rather difficult to change the arrangements 
now, I fear. If you had spoken of this 
earlier ” 

The groom leading Mr. Dennison’s horse 
here turned the corner at a little distance, 
and the two men stood still instinctively, so 
as to avoid getting within earshot. 

Now that Mr. Morell could look into his 


218 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


future son-in-law's face he experienced a very 
disagreeable shock. To witness the discom- 
posure of a man whose self-confidence is, as a 
rule, supreme, is always unpleasant, and for 
Mr. Morell the evident confusion on this par- 
ticular face bore a fatal significance. It was 
unlike anything he had ever seen there; evi- 
dently the unexpected attack had taken him 
completely aback. 

“ What arrangements? ” asked Mr. Morell, 
putting a brave face upon it, though his hopes 
were fading, for did not these very symptoms 
point to the urgency of energetic action? 

“ The alterations in the interior of the 
house, for instance, and the new ceilings " 

“ There would be no hurry about that if 
you are not going to winter at home." 

“ No, to be sure; but still I should like 
to take Esme home for a little before we start; 
and then the settlements take time also, I 
suppose," said Mr. Dennison, stumbling about 
in his phrases like the veriest schoolboy. “ Be- 
sides, Christmas seems to me such a much 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


219 

more appropriate time for a wedding than 
September.” 

His eye was roving restlessly from side 
to side, in avoidance of his interlocutor’s anx- 
ious gaze, but the next words came as a 
relief. 

“ Well, well,” said Mr. Morell hastily, 
“ there is no need to decide in a hurry. It 
was only an idea of mine. I daresay you are 
right about the Christmas season.” 

He had quickly seen that to press the point 
further would only lead to an explanation 
which, of all things, he was determined to 
avoid. He knew now what he wanted to 
know, and there was nothing for it but to 
leave the perilous ground before anything 
irrevocable had been said. 

It was with a friendly smile and a warm 
handshake that he parted from the young 
man, but the moment the visitor’s back was 
turned he went straight to his room, and, sit- 
ting down with his face in his hands, attempted 
to survey the situation as it now presented 


220 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


itself. That Charles was swerving in his al- 
legiance to Esme was clear to him beyond all 
doubt. Not all the items of gossip picked 
up in London had brought the truth so well 
home to him as the sight of that disturbed 
face and the sound of those disconnected 
phrases. Two days ago he had agreed with 
Mary that something must be done, and he 
had done something, but unsuccessfully. 
What should the next step be? For of course 
there must be a next step: to leave fate to 
take its course was utterly out of the ques- 
tion. His experiment with Mr. Dennison 
had failed: was there any other experiment 
which it lay within his power to make? 


CHAPTER XIV. 


At first sight it seemed as though there 
was none. What did that mean? Surely 
something very like despair, since, however 
generous the millionaire might prove to be 
as a creditor, Mr. Morell recognised the im- 
possibility of owing his financial salvation to 
the man who had deserted his daughter. In 
this crisis of alarm it was the mere material 
side of the question which had again resumed 
the upper hand in his troubled spirit: sheer 
terror of the catastrophe which he had be- 
lieved so happily avoided, usurped for the 
moment his powers of thinking. There was 
something almost maddening in the reflec- 
tion that, but for the inclusion of one par- 
ticular singer in the Beerman troupe this sea- 
son, all might have gone so completely well. 

Mr. Morell began to wonder anew what were 
15 


221 


222 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


the Signora’s ultimate intentions with regard 
to Mr. Dennison. If it was true that she 
eschewed matrimony, surely she could not 
hope to keep him her slave for ever. She 
must be a dangerously fascinating woman in- 
deed to have succeeded in shaking Charles’s 
so evidently sincere attachment to Esme. By 
degrees, as his thoughts began to concen- 
trate around the personality of this woman, 
on whom so much depended, a new idea, born 
of the inventiveness of despair, dawned in the 
depths of his mind. A direct appeal to the 
man would, he felt, be far too perilous; how, 
then, if he were to go straight to the root of 
the evil, by appealing to the woman? It was 
not likely, after all, that her feelings were 
deeply engaged, and if she were like most of 
her kind, one millionaire would be as good to 
her as another. 

He looked at the idea for a moment or 
two, and then threw it aside. Just at first 
sight it appeared a little too audacious. But 
in less than five minutes his mind was once 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


223 

more busy with the thought — perforce, since 
there was nothing else to be busy with — and 
at second sight it already appeared less pre- 
posterous. He could remember now that such 
appeals actually had been made more than 
once by the families of too impressionable 
young men, and not always unsuccessfully. 
Might not the unknown siren chance to be 
generous; or why should not a round sum 
of money do the job here, as it had done in 
more than one case he knew of? Everything 
depended, of course, on the individuality of 
the woman. If she should prove to be either 
purchasable or magnanimous, things might 
even now go well. The symptoms pointed to 
a mere subjugation of the senses. From the 
observations he had made, it seemed clear to 
Mr. Morell that Charles had fallen into the 
power of a singularly wily woman, who had 
deliberately used music as an instrument of 
enslavement. No doubt the victim himself, I 
ashamed and grieved at his position, though 
lacking the strength to free himself, desired 


224 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


nothing so much as to shake off the fatal 
charm; his whole demeanour to-day seemed 
to Mr. Morell’s experienced eyes to suggest 
this theory, for there are moments at which 
a look backwards is of wonderful use in help- 
ing a man to gauge a position correctly. 

Maybe the appeal he contemplated was an 
absurd thing to do, considering the risk of 
hurrying on the final break; but he could 
think of nothing else to do in its place, and 
to do nothing at all meant almost certain 
ruin. 

For more than an hour he sat there, turn- 
ing over the arguments in his mind, but un- 
able to come to a final decision. But the 
decision was to come before he slept that 
night. 

It was at the moment of parting for the 
night, while touching Esme’s forehead with 
his lips, that the burning heat of the fair 
skin arrested his attention. A keener look 
revealed to him the feverish brilliancy of her 
eyes, and the nervousness in the smile which 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


225 


met his questioning gaze. In the strange 
game of see-saw which his material and his 
paternal fears were playing in his mind, it was 
once more the latter which took the ascend- 
ant, and his features contracted as though 
with physical pain. Before the door had closed 
behind Esme his mind was made up. He 
would go to Signora Belveda and plead for 
his child’s life — on his knees, if need be, — for 
his child’s life even more than for his fortune. 
After all, many a battle had been gained by 
a forlorn hope. 

On the following forenoon Mr. Morell was 
once more on his way to London. 

As Mrs. Morell turned from the entrance, 
where she had exchanged the last hurried 
words with her husband, her heart was heavy 
within her. Last night she had had a brief 
account of his discoveries in town; but she 
was ignorant of his mission there to-day, and 
supposed nothing further than that he was 
going to pursue his inquiries. But what she- 
knew already was enough for Mrs. Morell. 


226 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


It was some vague fear lest Esme’s own at- 
tention should have been aroused by her 
father’s evident disturbance of mind, and this 
abrupt return to town, which now led her to 
bend her steps towards the girl’s room, in 
order to see whether there was any comfort 
which she could give. 

Esme was sitting beside her work-table, 
but there was no work in her hands. She 
sat quite still, staring straight at some small 
glittering object which lay before her on the 
table. As Mrs. Morell softly approached, she 
saw that it was her engagement ring, which 
she had pulled from her finger, probably for 
the first time since the day on which Charles 
had placed the costly sapphire there him- 
self. 

“Oh, I did not hear you, mother!” she 
said, with a violent start, as she felt a hand 
on her shoulder and instinctively snatched 
up the ring. Glancing up into her mother’s 
face she saw that there were tears in the quiet 
grey eyes. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


227 

“ What are you doing, Esme? ” asked Mrs. 
Morell very low. 

Esme had first flushed scarlet and as quick- 
ly grown pale again. 

“ Nothing,” she said, almost coldly. “ I 
was looking at my ring, that is all.” 

“ And did you need to take it off to look 
at it?” 

“ Oh, I wanted to see what it would look 
like off my hand,” said Esme, quickly pushing 
it back to its place. “ Surely that is a very 
harmless occupation,” she added, with a forced 
laugh. 

Mrs. Morell said nothing; while Esme, 
hastily pulling a strip of embroidery from out 
of her basket, began with trembling fingers to 
thread a needle, as though to indicate that 
the subject was closed. 

There was a minute's silence, while the 
mother stood beside her daughter and 
watched and struggled with herself. All at 
once there was a little cry; Esme had pricked 
her finger, and at the same moment Mrs. 


228 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


Morell snatched away the work and took hold 
of her daughter’s two hands between her 
own. 

“ Don’t, Esme, don’t! ” she cried, with sud- 
den vehemence. “ You are doing what I have 
done so often; don’t pretend to be happy 
when you are not! I also have pretended, 
and I know what it leads to. You would 
be like me, I see the symptoms, but I will 
save you in spite of yourself. Speak, I tell 
you, speak! ” she- persisted, in a tone almost 
of command, which came strangely indeed 
from the lips of this mild little woman. 

“ Open your heart before it breaks! Tell 
me that you are unhappy — for you are un- 
happy, are you not? ” 

In her first surprise Esme had risen to her 
feet, striving to free her hands, but they were 
held too firmly for that. Her startled face, 
which she could not hide, and from which all 
colour had fled, stared back at her mother 
with wild eyes; yet so strong was the instinct 
of reserve within her, that even at this mo- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


229 

ment her lips moved to form a denial; but 
before she had succeeded in speaking, the 
familiar voice said again, more gently, “ You 
are unhappy, are you not?” and Esme fell 
forward on her mother’s neck in a passion of 
tears which she had suddenly grown too weak 
to repress. 

It was one of those bursts of grief which, 
coming all the more violently because they 
come late, seem in their vehemence to tax 
even the physical organisation to the limit of 
its strength. For several minutes Mrs. Morell 
was occupied solely in supporting the slender 
frame, which seemed almost torn asunder by 
deep and convulsive sobs. It was a grief 
which would have moved a stranger; yet the 
look on Mrs. Morell’s face denoted, not so 
much compassion, as a curious sort of satis- 
faction, touched at moments by a gleam of 
what looked like triumph. The cause of grief 
had not been removed, but that obstinate bar- 
rier of reserve had been broken down: if her 
child had to be sacrificed, at least she would 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


23O 

not die in silence, because she had not been 
able to make up her mind to speak of her 
secret. 

For several minutes Mrs. Morell con- 
tented herself with gently patting the disor- 
dered hair and stroking the small hands which 
were wet with their share of the shower. 
When the violence of the sobs had a little sub- 
sided, she helped Esme to a chair and sat 
down beside her. Even then several minutes 
more passed in silence, while the girl strug- 
gled to regain a little composure, and while 
Mrs. Morell sat quite still, contemplating her 
daughter with an expression very hard to de- 
fine. She was not aware of it herself, but what 
she felt at this moment was very like envy. 
This luxury of abandonment in grief was what 
she had never known, yet often so sorely 
needed. She was wondering now what it must 
feel like to be able to give outward expression 
to the fear that is slowly killing you, and 
asking herself what her own life might have 
been if any one had had the idea of saving 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


231 


her in spite of herself, as she was trying to 
save her daughter. 

“I was right, was I not?” she asked at 
last, as, with a deep sigh that was unmistak- 
ably one of relief, Esme’s head sank against 
the chair-back. 

“ Yes, mother, you were right,” she an- 
swered unsteadily, for she was still trembling 
from the violence of the storm that had swept 
over her. “ Charles does not love me as he 
used to do; he is changed, and he changes 
more every day; and I am so unhappy that 
I don’t think I can make anybody understand, 
even you.” 

“ Go on,” said the mother, taking her 
daughter’s hand again, as though to keep hold 
of her confidence. “ Say everything else that 
is on your mind; you can make me under- 
stand, if you wish. Has he said anything that 
makes you think he wants to break off the 
engagement? ” 

“ That is the strange part of it ; he will 
not hear of breaking it off. I myself sug- 


232 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


gested the idea only the other day, but he 
got so excited that he quite frightened me. 
And yet he is not what he used to be.” 

“ Tell me more of what he said.” 

And presently, pressed by her mother’s 
strangely eager questions, Esme had, for the 
first time in her life, opened her heart to its 
very depths, warming to the unusual sensa- 
tion as she proceeded, until she came to giv- 
ing an outline of the conversation that had 
made the deepest impression on her. 

“ He is so inexplicable at moments,” she 
finished; “ I do not understand it at all.” 

“ But I think I understand,” said Mrs. 
Morell, after an interval of silence. “ It is not 
that he has ceased to love you, but only that 
some one else has come between you for the 
moment. There are two sorts of love, Esme, 
as you will learn in time — one noble, the other 
ignoble; and there are two natures in every 
man on earth — a higher and a lower one. 
Charles loves you in the right way, but it 
seems to me that he loves some other person 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


233 

in the wrong way — somebody who dazzles his 
eyes without touching his heart; he is a man 
like other men, after all. It is probably be- 
cause he feels that your love can save him 
from his lower self that he clings to it so des- 
perately. Yes, I think I understand.” 

Mrs. Morell, like her husband, had judged 
the case quite correctly, though without the 
aid of past experience to go by, for a woman's 
intuition is often a surer guide even than a 
man’s memories. 

“ If he cares for anybody else ” began 

Esme, stiffening suddenly. 

But her mother’s hand was upon her knee 
already, with a gently warning pressure. 

“ Don’t put on that face, Esme, — don’t 
use that tone! You are going to shut your- 
self up again, and you must not do that, espe- 
cially not to him. If things are as I think 
they are, the only chance for you both is open- 
ness on your part. Do not be afraid of show- 
ing that you love him, if you truly love him. 
It is hard, I know. I have tried to do the same 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


234 

thing often, and have failed. Perhaps, if I had 
known how to speak in time, my own life 
might not have been a failure. But our cases 
are quite different. I always was plain; even 
at your age I had few attractions: I suppose 
I had no right to hope for anything better. 
But you are beautiful. You may be happy. 
Fight, therefore, for your right; grasp your 
happiness with both hands before it escapes 
you. Do not let that terrible reticence, which, 
after all, is only pride — a false and wicked 
pride — choke back the words that may save 
you! ” 

Wonderingly Esme gazed back at her 
mother's transfigured face, at the shining eyes 
whose gentle, everyday glance had never once 
betrayed the pathos of a wasted life; and as 
she gazed, understanding how terribly true 
must be the emotion which had led her mother 
to step so far outside her individuality, the 
stubborn pride within her began slowly to 
bend, — the bitterness passed gently away, 
leaving only the hot pain of unsatisfied love. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


235 

“If I love him! ” she repeated, in a voice 
that rang through the room; and now her 
eyes, too, took fire. “ Oh mother, I love him 
so well that I cannot sleep for thinking of 
him, and sometimes I think that if he aban- 
dons me it would be better not to live at all! ” 

It was now Mrs. Morell’s turn to gaze as- 
tonished at her daughter. Only once before, 
on the day of Mr. Dennison’s proposal, had 
she caught a glimpse of the capabilities of pas- 
sion which lay behind that flower-like face; 
but that had been but a momentary, half- 
frightened self-betrayal, while this was as a 
definite tearing away of the veil. 

She felt that to that passionate utterance 
there was no answer which she could make, 
and for several minutes more the two sat side 
by side in silence, each thinking of the other, 
for truly in this last half-hour mother and 
daughter had learnt more about one another 
than they had known since the beginning of 
their respective lives. 


CHAPTER XV. 


When the curtain rose in Covent Garden 
Theatre that evening Mr. Morell was in pos- 
session of one of the front seats. He had left 
Skeffington with the intention of visiting Si- 
gnora Belveda that same day, but the sight 
of a poster with her name in gigantic crim- 
son letters and the announcement that she 
was to sing in “ Carmen ” that same night, 
meeting him at the very station, had caused 
him to modify his plans, by giving rise to a 
new idea. Yes; decidedly he would have a 
look at her first on the stage, so as to have, 
at least, some notion of what to expect to- 
morrow, and possibly to be able to judge of 
his chances. It was conceivable that a glance, 
or the mere intonation of her voice, might, 

by giving an indication of character, tell him 
236 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


237 

whether there was any hope of moving this 
woman. 

In the strain of feverish expectation in 
which he had spent the afternoon, it had 
seemed to him that the evening would never 
come, and once seated before the lowered cur- 
tain, it appeared to him that it would never 
rise. 

When at length the well-known square in 
Seville, with the cigar factory to the right 
and the guard-house to the left, familiar to 
him from his worldly days, was disclosed, there 
were still five weary scenes to be sat through 
before Carmen’s appearance. The words of 
the chorus: — 

“ Here she comes ! 

Behold la Carmencita ! ” 

were the signal which put the final strain on 
his already strained attention. 

And at last she was there before his eyes; 
and, curiously enough, the effect of his first 
glance at her was to calm his over-great ex- 
citement by causing his heart to sink with a 
16 


238 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

sudden, hopeless sensation. If this was the 
woman into whose hands Dennison had fallen, 
there was small prospect, certainly, of deliv- 
ering him. He had known that she was beau- 
tiful, but he had not been prepared for any- 
thing so brilliantly seductive, so victoriously 
commanding, as was this dark-eyed gipsy 
queen whose white teeth flashed derisively at 
the youths pressing around her. Alas, this 
woman was beautiful enough to turn far older 
and far maturer heads than that of Charles 
Dennison! 

Within the same minute he heard the first 
note of her voice,, but was conscious of no 
more than a pleasant oral sensation, so deeply 
was he engrossed in the contemplation of her 
person. Upon the first almost instantaneous 
impression of discouragement there had fol- 
lowed a second, for which he could find no ex- 
planation — the impression, namely, that he had 
met this woman at some other period of his 
life. She had distinctly surprised him; and yet, 
paradoxically enough, after the first moment 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


239 

of surprise, he was aware of something about 
her — her voice, her gestures, her eyes, he could 
not have said which — that was inexplicably 
familiar. 

By the time she had sung her first air 
the impression had almost vanished; he 
seemed to have lost sight of something that 
he had perceived in a passing flash. But it 
was not gone; he caught sight of it again at 
the moment when Carmen, having flung her 
flower-bunch into Don Jose’s face, escapes 
towards the cigar manufactory. In that half- 
wild, half-shy movement he had recognised 
something that he had most certainly seen 
before, though, plunge into his memory as he 
might, he could not lay hold of either a name 
or a place. 

Once or twice again in the course of the 
evening the impression returned, always to 
sink again out of sight, though never definite- 
ly vanishing. But his deeply preoccupied mind i 
had no leisure to give to what seemed a mere 
mockery of imagination; to him the prima 


240 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


donna was only the woman to whom he was 
going to appeal to-morrow, and all his atten- 
tion was concentrated on the attempt to read 
her disposition in her face and her very move- 
ments. It was long since he had seen the 
opera, and not until towards the middle of 
the evening did he suddenly seem to himself 
to be looking on at the very history of his 
unhappy daughter. Was not the fair-haired 
peasant girl Micaela a very Esme in her inno- 
cence and true affection? and was not Esme’s 
fate hers, since from both the man so faith- 
fully loved was stolen by a wanton woman? 
By degrees the idea of this resemblance took 
such possession of him that, under the min- 
gled influence of his excited nerves and of 
the insinuating music, he began to forget that 
the drama unrolled before him was fiction and 
not reality, and unconsciously to look for in- 
dications of hope or fear in Carmen's very 
words, losing sight of the fact that they were 
just Carmen's words and not those of Signora 
Belveda. The strange way in which the indi- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


241 

viduality of the singer seemed to melt into 
that of the Spanish cigarette-girl, only helped 
to bewilder him still further, by supporting 
the illusion. It was but a poor sort of hope 
that he could gather in this deceptive fashion. 
When Carmen sang in mocking tones — 

“ I count my lovers by the dozen ; 

Not one of them can please me quite ” — 

he tried to find comfort in her evident insta- 
bility. If, indeed, she counted her lovers by 
the dozen, why, then, Charles was only one 
of a dozen, and could be easily spared. 

And again, from out of Escamillo’s an- 
nouncement, that Carmen’s love does not out- 
last six weeks, he desperately tried to extract 
an illusive hope. 

Surely, yes, surely this woman with the 
provoking glance and the bold smile could 
not love for longer. 

But after that there came a moment 
which seemed to kill hope. This was when 
Carmen gives Don Jose contemptuous leave 
to go:— 


242 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ Yes, to depart the best would be — 

A smuggler’s life will ne’er suit thee. 

Yes, start without delay.” 

The words, indeed, should have gone to 
strengthen the former impression; but in the 
look and gesture which accompanied them, 
there lay so merciless an indifference to the 
victim who has ruined himself for her sake 
that Mr. Morell felt himself at this moment 
brought back with a start from fiction to 
reality. Surely that look, those accents, were 
a true revelation of character, not of Carmen, 
but of Signora Belveda herself. How much, 
indeed, of those cruel lines about the mouth 
and of the light in the almost savagely gleam- 
ing eyes belonged to the imaginary Carmen, 
and how much to the living actress? 

In this moment of bewildered emotion it 
was hard to say; but dating from this scene 
in the opera, Mr. Morell was conscious of a 
new feeling of discouragement. Was it in- 
deed possible to hope for any mercy from the 
woman who could smile with this fiendish 
brilliancy? 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


243 

He went back to his hotel depressed, but 
still determined to do what he had come to 
London to do. The chances seemed to him 
smaller than they had appeared yesterday; but 
unless he had tried this thing, there could be 
no rest for him. 

Next afternoon, towards three o’clock, he 
stood at Signora Belveda’s door. No one was 
received before that hour — so he was in- 
formed. The question was, would he be re- 
ceived at all? He asked himself this while 
he stood at the door, having sent in his card 
by the uncommonly blazing “ Buttons,” and 
during the few minutes that passed before his 
return. Now that the decision was so close 
at hand, he was conscious of no special trepida- 
tion. The nervous strain had been spent yes- 
terday, and the forenoon had been passed in 
that state of fictitious indifference which often 
follows on excitement too long sustained. It 
was almost mechanically that he had made his 
way to the fateful street, and he waited almost 
quietly in the hall. Very likely the answer 


244 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


would be negative. After all, why should she 
receive a perfect stranger? But if she refused, 
what should his next step be? 

He had come to no conclusion when the 
servant came back again and begged him to 
step forward. The Signora would certainly 
receive him, and would be with him in a 
minute. 

And with this explanation the boy left him 
alone in a large and splendid but strangely 
disordered apartment. His first impression 
was that he must have come to a wrong ad- 
dress, for this mixture of objects lying about 
on the floor and piled beside open packing- 
cases that were evidently waiting to receive 
them, seemed more to belong to a private 
museum than to a lady’s drawing-room. 
What, for instance, should a woman want 
with these daggers and spears, or with such a 
strange variety of musical instruments, all of 
which, be she as great an artist as she liked, 
she could not be humanly capable of play- 
ing? It was not until he caught sight upon 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


245 

a chair of just such castanets as he had seen 
Carmen clash together last night that he 
began to understand. A glance at the mound 
of wreaths in the corner finally made the situ- 
ation clear. No doubt this was a museum, a 
museum of trophies, or more truly a temple 
erected to talent by the possessor herself, a 
place of self-worship, where she could sit and 
gloat over the triumphs of her life, and over 
her own beauty too, as the photographs on 
the wall soon told him, for on as many as he 
looked at he found again the same face that 
he had seen yesterday above the footlights, 
though each time in a different setting, some- 
times with neck and shoulders freely displayed 
in the Renaissance fashion, and again with a 
medieval ruff mounting to the very throat, 
and with hair drawn stiffly off the forehead 
under Mary Stuart’s pearl embroidered cap, 
and again, close by, with a flood of dark locks 
streaming to her knees, and her splendid form 
vigorously moulded under Aida’s queenly 
robes. For long did Mr. Morell stand in deep 


246 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

thought before this last picture, and it was 
with a puzzled frown on his face that he at 
last turned away. That same face, always that 
same face, whichever way he looked. No, 
here was another face at last, that of a man. 
From the top of a heap of loose music Mr. 
Morell took up the oval frame, which had 
already been removed from its place on the 
wall, preparatory to packing. He had ex- 
pected to be confronted by Charles Dennison’s 
features, but what he saw was a faded and 
very mediocre representation of a hard- 
worked-looking man of about thirty, in rough 
attire; a square, stolid face, relieved by a cer- 
tain steady and yet sombre light in the rather 
deep-set eyes, which stared straight out of 
the picture. Where had Mr. Morell seen that 
face before, or one very like it? The ques- 
tion which he had asked himself more than 
once last night rose to his lips again now, for 
this face too was not the face of a complete 
stranger. 

While still holding the photograph in his 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


24; 

hand, Mr. Morell all at once started nervously. 
He had thought himself alone in the room, 
but now from the other side of a table piled 
with books there came the unexpected sound 
of a prolonged yawn. Looking about him, 
he for the first time perceived the oxidised 
silver cage, and a pair of yellow eyes gleaming 
through the bars. So this was the style of 
pet Signora Belveda inclined to! Surely an- 
other curious indication of character, and not 
a particularly reassuring one. And yet, for 
all that, his spirits were unconsciously rising, 
and the reason lay close at hand — namely, in 
the disorder around him; for if Signora Bel- 
veda was leaving London, as of course she 
would soon do, since the end of the season was 
fast approaching, there would be a far greater 
chance of inducing her to give up Charles 
and of keeping him henceforward out of her 
hands. 

Mr. Morell was still thinking of these 
things, and gazing with a certain dreamy fas- 
cination into the panther’s dilated eyes, when 


248 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

the door at the other end of the room opened 
abruptly. He turned in time to see a tall 
woman in hat and veil enter, holding his card 
in her hand. 


CHAPTER XVI. 




Before she had traversed half the space 
between them, Mr. Morell saw to his aston- 
ishment that she was far more visibly excited 
than he was, for her lips were parted and her 
bosom rising and falling so rapidly that she 
seemed to be struggling for breath. As she 
stood still, straight in front of him, he was 
met by the gaze of a pair of eyes almost as 
yellow and almost as fierce as those of the pan- 
ther in the cage, and shining lurid and threat- 
ening from behind her sprigged lace veil. 

“ You are Mr. Morell? ” she asked, with a 
queer catch in her voice. “ Mr. Robert Mo- 
rell ?” 

He bowed, himself moved by an acute re- 
turn of excitement. 

“ What do you want of me? ” 

“ I came to speak of a man who is a — 

249 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


250 

mutual acquaintance of ours, and to ask a 
favour from you with regard to that man. I 
have no right at all to ask this favour or any- 
thing else of you, but I have no other re- 
source than to throw myself on your mercy.” 

He had learnt his lesson well in the long 
sleepless hours of the night, while tossing 
from side to side in the hotel bed, and the 
first few phases went smoothly enough. But 
at this, point he began to waver, either with 
the sudden understanding of what he was 
doing, or under the influence of her angry 
stare; for by this time he could see quite 
plainly that her excitement was an angry ex- 
citement, — the twitching of her mouth and 
the manner in which she turned about the 
card in her hand as she listened impatiently 
to his speech were unmistakable. He was 
astonished, and also troubled with a tenfold 
return of that trouble which last night al- 
ready had touched him at sight of this woman. 
Now that he saw her near at hand, he under- 
stood that it was her eyes which chiefly stirred 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


251 

that dormant chord of memory. Where had 
he seen that peculiar gleam before? he asked 
himself, even while repeating his studied 
phrases. 

“ It is a difficult matter to enter upon,” 
he continued in a less assured tone of voice, 
“ and, if I had not a certain confidence in your 
generosity ” 

But here she broke in, trembling with im- 
patience. 

“ It is not a difficult matter at all; I know 
what you want. The name of the man whom 
you call a mutual acquaintance is Charles 
Dennison, is it not? And you have come here 
to beg for the liberty of your daughter’s 
fiance, who shows more interest in me than is 
convenient in a fiance. Oh yes, I know ex- 
actly what you want, but you shall not have 
it; your trouble is wasted, I tell you!” 

She was crumpling up the card in her 
hand as she spoke, though evidently with- 
out knowing it, and Mr. Morell, more and 
more astonished at her vehemence, stared at 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


252 

her aghast, forgetting to speak immediately. 
That she should refuse his request he had been 
prepared, but that she should fling him so 
fierce a denial before he had even spoken, this 
caused him to lose his cue. In all his sur- 
mises concerning the reception which awaited 
him this strange anger had had no place. 

When after a moment or two he had found 
his voice again, he began to speak rather at 
random, forgetting his prepared phrases and 
plunging straight into the heart of the matter. 

“ But why, but why? ” he asked in be- 
wilderment, throwing off in an instant his 
sham composure, as one throws off an ill- 
fitting garment. “ You have not heard me 
yet; you know nothing; wait till you have 
heard me, I implore of you! My daughter’s 
life as well as her happiness may depend on 
your decision; it is for her sake that I have 
stooped to beg for mercy. For her there is 
only one man in the world, only one chance 
of happiness; while for you, is not the world 
at your feet every day? Most likely his horn- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


253 

age is but a pastime to you; give him back 
to her, I beg of you. I am a very unhappy 
father, and you will have done one great good 
work in your life.” 

“ I will not give him back,” she harshly 
repeated. “ I have told you so. No, no; I 
will not.” 

He turned pale, but went on speaking all 
the faster. 

“ You cannot mean that as final; think 
again. At least give me your reasons. Every 
one says that you do not love him, that you 
do not mean to marry him. You will be 
saving two lives, for I do not think I can sur- 
vive the ruin! ” 

He had not meant to bring in his financial 
position — rather to confine himself to his 
daughter’s situation; but the feeling of ter- 
ror engendered by the probable failure of his 
mission made him forget his programme. And 
in his panic he once more, and this time finally, 
lost sight of everything but the near danger 
to himself. 


254 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ Do you call a broken engagement ruin? ” 
asked the singer disdainfully. 

“ For me, yes,” he wildly replied, carry- 
ing his hand to his forehead, “ since nothing 
but that can save me.” 

She seemed to grow suddenly more at- 
tentive. “ Save you from ruin? — material 
ruin? But I thought you were rich? ” 

“ I was once what people call very well 
off; but that is all over, and without Denni- 
son’s money I shall probably be a beggar to- 
morrow. You may know that too, if you 
like ; perhaps that will make you think 
again.” 

“ I knew nothing of this,” she said re- 
flectively. “ You must tell me more. I should 
like to hear exactly how matters stand. Will 
you not sit down? ” she added, as though with 
a sudden recollection, seating herself as she 
spoke in the nearest easy-chair. Until this 
moment they had both been standing oppo- 
site one another in the middle of the room. 
Mr. Morell followed her example with the air 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


255 

of a man who is not quite aware of what he 
is doing. 

“ Go on,” she said, before even he had 
found a chair. -You have had losses?— 
great losses? ” She had all at once grown 
strangely quiet. 

“ I am on the verge of bankruptcy,” he 
recklessly replied, and went on in rapid words 
to paint his situation. The chief acknowl- 
edgment once made, it became almost 
easy for him to speak. He even found a 
certain grim pleasure in courting the pity 
of this stranger. It was more acceptable 
than the pity of an intimate would have 
been. 

She listened carefully, putting questions 
from time to time which betrayed her close 
attention. 

“ Go on, go on! ” she said when he paused 
in his narrative, settling herself in her chair 
the better to listen; and thus encouraged, 
he went on, unveiling all those secrets which 
were known only to himself and to his man of 


2^6 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

business, and beginning each moment to hope 
a little more. 

“ And without this loan you would not 
have been able to get along?” she asked at 
last, when he had said all there was to 
say. 

He shook his head. 

“ And there is no one else upon whom 
you can count? ” 

“ No one,” he hoarsely replied. 

“ So you would be ruined, failing this, 
quite ruined? ” 

“ Yes,” he said, with his haggard eyes 
fixed questioningly on her face. 

“ I knew nothing of this,” she repeated. 
“ How could I have guessed? ” 

“ You see now what I meant when I said 
you would be saving two lives? ” 

He stopped short and looked at her appre- 
hensively, for she was smiling to herself — such 
a strange, inexplicable smile! It was at this 
moment that he began to be puzzled by her 


manner. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


257 

“You see it?” he repeated more diffi- 
dently. 

“ Yes, I see it,” she said in a new tone, 
sitting suddenly upright, as though the better 
to confront him. “ You have told me every- 
thing, have you not? Now it is my turn to 
speak. Listen to me, or rather — -no, you had 
better look at me first. Do I remind you of 
nothing?— of nobody? Look well! ” She was 
undoing her veil with nimble fingers as she 
spoke. 

“ Look well! ” she said again, as she quick- 
ly pulled off her hat, and, still in feverish 
haste, untied the bow at her throat, and with 
a rapid movement of her shoulders threw 
off her frilled lace cape. “ Whom am I 
like? ” 

She was leaning forward in her chair, with 
her closed hands planted on her knees, and 
her face only a few inches from his. He 
looked in amazement, looked again, and sud- 
denly, in one instant, a veil was torn with- 
in him. 


258 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“Eva Birke l” he exclaimed in a tone of 
pure astonishment. 

It was the yellow light in the eyes so close 
to him that had pierced the cloud of his for- 
getfulness. Yes, those were the very eyes 
of that half-shy, half-wild creature who had 
haunted his memory for quite a long time — 
almost a whole year — so long ago. 

“ Eva Birke was my mother,” she said, 
looking straight at him. 

“ Your mother? How then? Let me see, 
she went to America, I think, and married 
there? ” 

“ No, she never married.” 

He looked at her blankly. 

“ Do you not yet understand? Have you 
really quite forgotten those five days you spent 
at Nettlefield, and all the delightful strolls 
by the river? To you they were a charming 
pastime, no doubt; what they were to her you 
can perhaps imagine, since I tell you that I 
am her daughter.” 

His widely opened eyes were still fixed on 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


259 

her face; he did not seem to have the power 
to remove them, though he felt a cold sweat 
slowly breaking out on his forehead. At this 
moment his face was so void of expression as 
to appear almost imbecile. 

“ That is impossible,” he said at last, ut- 
tering the words thickly, as though his tongue 
had been lamed. “ I should have known; she 
would have let me know.” 

“ You think so? It is quite evident that 
you knew her for only five days! Did you 
ever trouble yourself about her subsequent 
fate? ” 

. “ I asked about her a year later, and was 
told she was in America.” 

“ And that of course satisfied your con- 
science. And in face of this tender solicitude 
of yours you wonder that she did not come 
crawling to your feet for favours. Are you 
not able to imagine that a labourer’s daughter 
need not necessarily be base? ” 

Mr. Morell had at last removed his gaze 
from her face, to sink it heavily to the floor. 


260 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


While stupidly following the pattern of the 
carpet he actually saw nothing of it. Visions 
of a sun-flecked, shadow-speckled river-side, 
and of those far-off June days full of green 
leaves and soft breezes, had risen to blot out 
the present. He was beginning to realise that 
there was nothing impossible about the situa- 
tion, which at first sight had seemed so pre- 
posterous. Without being aware of it, he 
believed already, believed so completely that 
when Signora Belveda said briefly, “ If you 
require proofs I can give them to you: the 
date of my baptismal certificate will be enough 
to convince you, I suppose? ” he merely shook 
his head. He required no certificate with 
those eyes before him; all he wondered at was 
that he should not have identified them at first 
sight. They were fiercer in the daughter than 
in the mother, less like those of a startled 
deer, more like those of a beast of prey, but 
they were the same eyes, nevertheless. For 
several moments more he sat in complete si- 
lence, still too numbed by astonishment to do 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


26l 


anything but contemplate the discovery with- 
out attempting to draw conclusions. 

“ Have you nothing to ask? ” she began 
again, seeing that he did not speak. “ Would 
you not like to know what became of my 
mother? ” 

“ She went to America,” he mechanically 
repeated. 

“ She never reached America. In the 
autumn of that year her father died — of a 
broken heart, people said; and her brother 
— you remember John Birke perhaps, I have 
his likeness there — decided to sell the cot- 
tage, and emigrate with his sister.” 

Mr. Morell could now remember the broth- 
er quite well,— the sullen, taciturn young man 
who had always been in the way, and who had 
scowled at him so vindictively whenever he 
had met the stranger in his sister’s company, 
but to whose evident ill-humour he had paid 
no further attention. % 

“ Neither of them felt able to face the 
disgrace which had come upon the house, and 


262 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


which had killed their father,” went on the 
singer, “ for though they were poor, they had 
always stood high in the opinion of the neigh- 
bourhood. If you had happened to meet John 
Birke in those days, you would not be sitting 
here to-day. I believe it was my mother who 
kept him from finding you out and killing 
you. On the voyage out I was born, and two 
hours after my birth my mother managed to 
escape from her cabin and threw herself over- 
board.” 

Mr. Morell raised his head with a spas- 
modic movement of astonishment, shudder- 
ing suddenly from head to foot and turning 
of a yellow pallor. From the motion of his 
lips he was evidently trying to speak, but 
she went on deliberately with her narra- 
tive. 

“ Some people said she did it in delirium, 
but I don’t believe it; I believe she knew ex- 
actly what , she was doing. My uncle landed 
in New York with me in his arms, and became 
to me guardian, father, mother, everything 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


263 

I ever had. The money with which he pro- 
vided for me was earned often with bleeding 
hands and sore limbs, for ill-luck pursued him 
into the New World. He was an unhappy 
man, and people thought him hard and cold, 
but he never forgot his sister, and he never 
forgot you. He told me my own history long 
before I could understand it, and from the 
time that I could speak he told me that I had 
only one thing to do in life, and that was to 
avenge my mother. Once when I had scarlet 
fever and he thought I was dying — I may 
have been nine years old at the time — he went 
into a rage, and told me that I had no right 
to die until I had accomplished my task. I 
believe the thought of not being able to reach 
you through me made him almost as unhappy 
as the thought of losing me. And because 
of his hatred of you, he hated your whole 
class. He would read to me incidents out 
of the papers, episodes which resembled the 
story of my mother, such trite episodes as 
occur daily, and he would tell me always and 


264 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


always how all the misery and ruin in the 
world comes of the arrogance of the rich to- 
wards the poor, of the creed which the high- 
born have made for themselves that the low- 
born are there only for their service and their 
pleasure. He would purposely harrow my 
feelings with descriptions of my fair young 
mother, and a hundred times he gave me the 
details of her terrible end. The more bitterly 
I cried the better was he pleased, and those 
were the moments he chose for driving the 
idea of revenge deeper and deeper into my 
soul. And thus the thought grew up as I 
myself grew, and when my uncle died, leaving 
me alone before I was fourteen, it was strong 
enough to stand alone without his aid. How 
it was that I did not starve after his death 
I cannot exactly say. For a time I ran mes- 
sages for shops, and for a time I sold flowers 
in the streets. It was in the street Mr. Hux- 
ley found me. He was a great theatrical di- 
rector, with a talent for discovering talent, 
and he accosted me as I was offering him a 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 265 

bunch of daffodils. I was told later that there 
was something particularly dramatic in the 
way I offered the daffodils. It may be, for 
I remember that I had had no breakfast that 
day, and most likely I held out my bunch 
as though I were presenting a pistol at his 
head. He actually took the risk of having 
me trained for the stage at his own expense. 
It turned out a better speculation than he 
had hoped, since within a few years my voice 
was discovered, and he was able to bring me 
out as an opera-singer. At seventeen I made 
my first appearance; and it was no immediate 
triumph, for the full power of my voice de- 
veloped but slowly. There was much, very 
much, to go through before I became what I 
am to-day, and through it all I have never 
forgotten my uncle’s teaching.” 

There was silence when she had done 
speaking. After a minute Mr. Morell dropped 
the hands with which he had covered his eyes, 
and even in the height of her excitement she 
was struck with the sudden look of age upon 


266 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


the face that had been handsome only five 
minutes ago. 

“ At least you have been successful,” he 
said, uncertainly. To himself he seemed at 
that moment to be acting a part in some old- 
fashioned melodrama. This story of the long- 
lost child, of the guilty father, surely he had 
met it over and over again in penny papers, 
but he had never thought of seriously apply- 
ing it to real life. 

“Successful! Yes, I have been successful, 
but I owe my success to myself. It is no 
thanks to you that I did not 'die in a gutter. 
And what are these things to me, after all? ” 

She looked round contemptuously at the 
scattered trophies. “ Wooden and paste- 
board playthings that I would sell any day 
for a home. Do you think that all the ap- 
plause and all the flowers they fling at me 
can make me forget for one minute that I 
have been robbed of my childhood, and that 
it is you who robbed me? In the abstract I 
have always hated you. If my uncle had lived 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 267 

he would probably have framed a methodical 
plan of revenge, bilt it is not in me to make 
plans. It was enough to have the vague hope, 
I may say the almost instinctive certainty, 
that in my world-wide wanderings I should 
meet you some day, and that fate would show 
me the way to avenge my mother. And it 
has come as I hoped. I knew all about you 
within a week of my arrival in London. Since 
then my eye has been upon you, so to say; 
and when Charles Dennison ran across my 
path, and I found that he was the promised 
husband of your daughter — the other daugh- 
ter, you know, the one you are not ashamed 
to acknowledge — I felt happy for the first 
time in my life. Never before have I taken 
such trouble to fascinate a man; he could not 
escape me, and, of course, he did not. I had 
calculated rightly in supposing that you 
would love her, the other one; and I told my- 
self that, if I could succeed in breaking her 
heart, I should succeed in striking you, and 
that then my mother, my young beautiful, 


268 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


ill-used mother, might sleep more quietly in 
her grave — no, what am I saying? ” she inter- 
rupted herself, with a harsh laugh — “ not in 
her grave, since she had none, but at the bot- 
tom of the sea, among the sea-weeds. At that 
thought I triumphed already, but I had never 
foreseen such a triumph as this, for I could 
not know that I was ruining you as well as 
making you unhappy. I think that now even 
my uncle would be satisfied. I have hoped 
— yes, I have even prayed for such a moment 
as this, — and it is to me you come for mercy! 
What a joke ! oh heaven above, what a 
joke! ” 

She had risen impetuously as she spoke, 
as though cramped by her sitting attitude, 
and breaking once more into a discordant, 
over-excited laugh. Mr. Morell instinctively 
imitated her movement. He looked at her 
with a feeling that was almost like terror, 
mixed with a bewildered admiration. With 
her hotly flushed face and dark disordered 
hair, disarranged by the vehement removal of 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 269 

her hat, she seemed to him more beautiful 
than any woman he had ever seen, and for 
one passing pulse of time the thought that 
this, magnificent creature claimed to be his 
daughter caused a fleeting thrill of something, 
which could only have been pride, to pass 
through his perplexed brain. But it was re- 
pugnance, after all, which had the upper hand, 
for at this moment there was about her beauty 
a character so ferocious as to be almost more 
animal than human. Just so had Carmen 
looked last night when she dismissed her in- 
convenient lover — he recognised the very ges- 
ture; and despite the strain of the moment, 
despite her head flung up and queenly stature, 
he recognised also the labourer’s daughter, un- 
tamed in her instincts, ungoverned in her pas- 
sions, to whose vigorous nature a tardy pro- 
cess had never been able to give more than a 
surface polish. It was the cigarette-maker 
of last night whom he saw before him. 

Her words still came, exultant and bitter, 
but he no longer heard them. She was still 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


270 

speaking when he stooped and began to grope 
about on the floor. 

“ What is it? ” she asked, breaking off 
abruptly. 

“ My hat,” he replied, in a flat, indifferent 
voice. 

“ Here, I have got it.” 

Without any further word he turned to- 
wards the door. 

“You are going? Have you nothing 
more to say? ” 

“ No, nothing more.” 

“ What are you going to do? ” 

“ I don’t know yet, I must think.” 

He waited for another moment, as though 
to see if she were done speaking, and then 
went out, grey in the face, but holding him- 
self erect. 

Signora Belveda stood for some moments 
looking at the closed door. Was this all? 
She had expected a more demonstrative de- 
spair than this; she had wanted to be further 
implored, in order to taste the delight of re- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


271 

fusing. The unexpected reticence of the victim 
blunted the point of her triumph at this su- 
preme moment of her life. Something like a 
chill began to settle on her artificially heated 
spirit. 

“ I wonder what he will do? ” she asked 
herself musingly, still staring at the closed 
door. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


By the time Mr. Morell got back again to 
the hotel he knew what he was going to do. 

To him it seemed the only possible escape. 
That sin, committed so long ago as to be all 
but forgotten, blocked every other road. On 
one side stood his own ruin and disgrace and 
Esme’s loss of happiness, on the other that 
other dark thing which he preferred not to 
name, even while resolving to go through with 
it; — and since he did not feel the strength 
to face the one, there was nothing for it but 
to face the other. He had been a coward 
morally, but never physically, and the sense 
of utter despair had the effect of giving back 
to him all his lost sense of dignity. His hands 
scarcely shook as he packed his portmanteau 
for the return journey, for after a little re- 
flection he had determined to do the thing at 
272 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


273 


home rather than here. The idea of being 
found by the hotel servants and treated with 
indifference, possibly with disrespect, was re- 
pugnant to his fastidious taste. To be sure, 
the worst shock might thus have been spared 
the two women at home; but, though sin- 
cerely sorry for the pain he was about to cause, 
Mr. Morell could not see there a sufficient 
reason for altering his plans. What could a 
shade of horror more or less matter, since 
the chief fact remained irrevocable? Besides, 
he had nothing convenient here to do it with; 
while at home, in its Russia leather case, there 
lay that exquisite little revolver along whose 
steel handle he could even now in spirit see 
the light play. 

The hansom he had ordered was an- 
nounced while he was considering these 
things. He rose, glancing slowly round the 
room and out into the street. It was not 
thus that he had imagined himself taking his 
last look of London. 

At Skeffington there was Mary’s question- 


274 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


in g look to encounter- — he had not thought of 
this before — and Esme’s white face to stab 
his soul afresh. Fortunately it was late 
enough to make his plea of having dined in 
town sound plausible. 

“ You shall know everything to-morrow,” 
was the only answer he gave to his anxious 
wife, as, pleading fatigue, he went straight 
to his room. 

And now at last he was alone, and with 
a sigh of relief, as of one who has reached the 
haven, he sank on to his favourite chair. 

There was not much left to do; he had 
arranged all the details in his mind during 
the journey down, even to the position in 
which he would be discovered, and the spot on 
which the mouth of the revolver should be 
placed. Some people took the shot right into 
their mouths, but that idea he had rejected 
immediately as involving almost certainly 
some hideous disfigurement of the face, and 
even in this extremity the former “ beauty 
man ” could not bear to think of being dis- 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


275 

torted into a caricature of himself. He re- 
membered having read somewhere of a wretch 
who had shot himself with a rifle, which, by 
means of his big toe, he had discharged into 
his face, and of the results of this manoeuvre, 
even to the particles of brain that had been 
found sticking in the window-curtains. Mr. 
Morell shuddered gently at the recollection; 
there was no need to do the thing so inartis- 
tically as that. 

In a few moments more he fetched the 
revolver and laid it loaded beside him on the 
table. Then he settled himself well into the 
deep chair, from which he did not think there 
was any danger of slipping to the floor, for 
to be found sprawling on the carpet would 
not have suited him at all. It was with an 
almost feminine care that he had foreseen 
every contingency. As for written explana- 
tions, that idea too had been rejected, since 
to acknowledge the truth would be too hu- 
miliating, and to invent a falsehood would 
mean to be unmasked. 


276 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


There was nothing to do now but to wait 
until the house had gone to sleep — for many 
reasons he would prefer the discovery to be 
made in the morning; and as he sat thus pas- 
sive, the situation in its total outline passed 
once more before his mind’s eye. Poor Mary! 
It was a hard lot he was leaving her to; but, 
curiously enough, it was not round the woman 
who had been his wife for twenty years that 
his thoughts now lingered. They had escaped 
from him, and had slipped back, far back, into 
the long dead years, out of whose vague shad- 
ows there shone the outline of another wom- 
an’s face, the only woman who had been able 
to make even a small mark upon his self- 
absorbed, though not vicious individuality. 
And that woman had died because of him. 
After the shock of the discovery, it would have 
seemed to him quite natural if some one had 
told him that he too had forfeited his right 
to live. 

And yet, although it was he himself who 
had condemned himself to death, it was not 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


2 77 

so much self-disgust which had driven him to 
this, not any remorseful thought of the child 
from whose lips he had to-day heard such well- 
merited reproaches, but simply the recogni- 
tion that for him the situation had no other 
outlet. It was towards the mother he felt in- 
clined to grow soft, not towards the daughter. 
This dull pain in his soul was not only sorrow 
for the world he was leaving; mixed with it 
was a vague regret, difficult to seize and im- 
possible to define. Perhaps, after all, if Fate 
had thrown him more constantly into the 
path of that woman now forgotten for so 
long — that lowborn and yet so strangely en- 
thralling woman — he might have discovered in 
himself the faculty of loving. 

Mixed with this cloudy regret there was 
yet another sensation. Mr. Morell had al- 
ways been of those who hold greatly to the 
esteem of their fellow-creatures, not only lov- 
ing the salutations in the market-place, but 
used also to being surrounded with affection- 
ate care. To discover suddenly that for thirty 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


278 

years past there had been somebody in the 
world who had hated and despised him, filled 
him not with pain alone, but also with a sort 
of naive surprise, from which he could scarcely 
recover. 

It was over this point that he was still 
puzzling when eleven o’clock struck in the 
hall downstairs. He listened again — not even 
the sound of a distant door — surely the house 
was asleep at last. 

It is the common practice of opera-singers 
to make up for enforced late hours by break- 
fasting in bed, and this is what Signora Bel- 
veda was doing two days after Mr. Morell’s 
visit. These two days had been not quite so 
full of the sensation of triumph as she herself 
had expected them to be. Having attained 
her object so completely, she knew she ought 
to be revelling in the thought; while, instead, 
a curious flatness of sensation was making 
itself felt. Perhaps it was just because the 
object had been so perfectly attained, and 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


279 

there was nothing more to do in that direc- 
tion, that the fierce zest which for months 
past had been her motive power had suddenly 
abated, or perhaps it was something in the 
face of the broken man who had left her with- 
out a word of self-defence, which had awak- 
ened within her an unsuspected chord of pity. 

A creature of fierce instincts and undis- 
ciplined will, Julia had become what she was 
by the mere force of circumstances. That 
vigour of emotion and that energy in the pur- 
suit of an object, which, two days ago, had 
turned her almost into a wild beast, were 
qualities which, guided into other channels, 
might have brought better results. The idea 
of revenge having been early presented to 
her mind, and by a rudely eloquent teacher, 
had been seized upon with all the intensity 
of her nature, just as a higher and better idea 
might have been equally seized upon, had it 
chanced to be so presented; for, though there' 
was much that was brutal, there was nothing 
that was ignoble in her nature. That stolid- 


280 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


looking British workman, whose soul was so 
little stolid, had much to answer for when he 
gave to this woman her task in life, and thus 
coloured all her character. 

Possibly her vivid imagination and her 
dramatic instinct helped her to deceive her- 
self a little when she spoke of this task as 
the one object of her life, for a life so full of 
luxurious enjoyment as was hers necessarily 
distracts from the pursuance of any single pur- 
pose. Although she never forgot her uncle’s 
teaching, it was quite conceivable that, but 
for the chance circumstances which put the 
means of revenge into her hand, that lesson 
might never have been acted upon. 

In Julia’s relations with Charles Dennison 
there had been three distinct stages, the two 
first of which had been indicated by herself 
in her interview with Mr. Morell. At first, 
when the millionaire had crossed her path, 
there had been nothing but the instinctive de- 
sire of bringing another rich man to her feet, 
for this child of mixed conditions possessed 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


28l 


an almost insatiable thirst for luxury in every 
shape, and had thereby become greedy of 
money, only to fling it away again in handfuls. 
Then had followed the discovery that this man 
was betrothed to her father's daughter, and 
with it the flaming up of that spark of hatred 
which for years had been smouldering in her. 
From the moment that she had formed her 
plan she cared no more for his money; his 
infidelity to “ the other one ” had become the 
sole object to be aimed at. 

But upon this second stage there had fol- 
lowed a third which she had not indicated, 
of which she was in fact not yet distinctly 
aware. Her arts had been successful — or so 
she supposed, the long hours spent with the 
black-eyed Spaniard, under the combined in- 
fluence of music and of voluptuous surround- 
ings, had accomplished what she had meant 
them to accomplish; but was it quite certain 
that they had not done more? Until now it 
had been her boast that among all those who 
raved in her praise and poured out their for- 


282 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


tunes at her command, not one man had suc- 
ceeded in troubling her peace; but this time 
— this time — no, the idea was too absurd; 
why, the man was her instrument only, an 
instrument with which to wound others, not 
herself. She scorned herself for the passing 
doubt; and yet, as she reclined on her down 
pillows, luxuriously sipping her morning 
chocolate and glancing lazily through the 
morning paper, with the costly lace of her 
peignoir falling softly about her wrists and her 
throat, the outline of the sallow face with the 
dark eyes came more than once between her 
and the printed page. She was asking herself 
whether she should give him rendezvous at 
Paris in autumn, or whether it would not be 
better to insist on an immediate break with 
his betrothed and on his accompanying her 
straightway. She did not doubt her power 
of doing this. 

All at once, right through the hovering * 
vision of his features, a single printed word 
took possession of her eyes. She had caught 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 283 

the name of “ Skeffington,” and for months 
past she had never missed the tiniest notice 
that referred to the place. Here in the society 
column, between the notice of an At Home 
at the Duchess of Brotherton’s and of a meet- 
ing of fashionable clergymen, she was curtly 
informed that Mr. Morell of Skeffington had 
been found dead in his bedroom on the morn- 
ing of the nth inst., with a remarkably clean 
shot through the heart, and a revolver, of 
which five chambers were still loaded, beside 
him. “ Suicide from unknown motives ” had 
been the verdict at the inquest. 

Signora Belveda threw down the paper 
and stared blankly about her, then took it up 
again and looked closely at the date. The 
morning of the nth — yes, that was exactly 
the morning after he had visited her. 

After that she lay still for a long time, 
slowly collecting her thoughts and trying with 
difficulty to realise what had happened. And 
yet it was not very hard to realise; the de- 
velopment of events was quite easy to follow. 


284 A FORGOTTEN sin. 

She went over again the words she had spoken, 
she thought of his face as she had seen it last, 
and she understood that it could have ended 
in no other way. It was even incredible that 
she had not foreseen this. When, after a long 
interval, Signora Belveda’s maid came in, she 
found her mistress lying still, with a strangely 
white face and closed eyes, and the chocolate 
barely tasted beside her. She was shivering 
under her silken covers, not with the chill of 
the raw London day, but with a quite new 
horror. This should have been her supreme 
moment of triumph, and she knew it, and 
yet could only close her eyes in terror of the 
picture that pursued her. Her craving for re- 
venge had been satisfied to the full in the cruel 
interview so lately passed. Now that she had 
destroyed him, she was able to remember that 
that man with the grey hair and the grey face 
had, after all, been her father. And what had 
she attained? “ He killed her, and I have 
killed him,” she kept saying to herself in 
monotonous iteration. And was there not 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 285 

something almost too awful, even for so ro- 
bust a nature, in the thought of the dead 
father and the dead mother, both slain by 
their own act? 

With wild eyes and suddenly burning 
cheeks Julia flung herself out of bed, then 
stood for an interval holding her hot head 
between her cold hands. Without being quite 
sure of her own intentions, she felt pushed to 
immediate action, something that could free 
her from the intolerable self-reproach which 
was beginning to tear all that was generous in 
her nature. 

In a few moments more she had caught 
sight of the only thing there remained to 
do; again a few moments, and her thoughts, 
working at high pressure, had pointed out to 
her even the details of the plan. 

“ Watson,” she said to the returning maid, 
for whom she had hastily rung, Q pack up my 
dressing-case and trunk at once; never mind 
the rest of the luggage. I leave London by 

the two o’clock train.” 

*9 


286 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ But you sing to-night,” came from the 
astonished girl. 

“ Do I? Yes, to be sure; but I can’t help 
that. They must just do without me. I tell 
you I am going.” 

“ But they can’t do without you for the 
‘ African ’ ; and besides, there are four more 
nights to come. Surely, ma’am, you’re not 
going to break your engagement?” 

“ Yes, I am going to break my engage- 
ment,” said Julia, fiercely. “ Nobody can force 
me to sing if I will not. Do at once as I bid 
you. I go alone. You will stop to see about 
the luggage.” 

“ Very well, ma’am,” said Watson, intimi- 
dated but bewildered. She had seen many of 
her mistress’s caprices, but never anything 
equal to this, for this attendant of artistes 
knew what a broken engagement meant. 

Julia knew it too, but she gave no thought 
to that side of the question. What she meant 
to do must be done to-day, while the impulse 
was strong upon her, or possibly it might 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 287 

never be done; she knew herself well enough 
to be sure of that. 

Having scarcely buttoned her dress, she 
sat down to write the note which she had 
mentally composed while putting on her 
clothes. 

“ Dear Charles, — It is time to do what 
you have often asked me to do — viz., to let 
you run. I think it is better that there should 
be no good-byes, so it is no use trying to see 
me again, for by the time you get this I shall 
be off English ground. Don’t look for me in 
Paris either; I have changed my mind, and 
am not going to sing there. I have taken a 
fit of homesickness, and hope to be in New 
York by this day week. It is better to tell 
you straight out that I have only used you 
for purposes of my own, and that you never 
were anything to me.” 

“ I wonder if that is a lie? ” said Julia to 
herself, as she stared at the last line with a 


288 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


puzzled frown on her face. “ Anyway, it’s 
probably the only thing to keep him from 
following me. I’ve written plenty of this sort 
of note before. It’s queer, isn’t it, that this 
one should actually hurt a little bit?” 

She reflected for a moment longer. “ Shall 
I tell him to marry the other one? No — 
better not; that will come of itself.” 

When she had folded the note, she held 
it for a few moments in her hand. 

“ It is too early to send it yet; I must 
not post it till I am at the station. I won- 
der if he will try to follow me: perhaps he is 
not thinking of me at all; he may be with her 
now, drying her tears. I should have liked 
to have had just one glimpse of her. If it were 
not for that — thing — which I know is now 
lying in the house ” — and she shuddered vio- 
lently all through her magnificent frame — “ I 
would have gone to Skeffmgton and made the 
attempt; but this way — I cannot l” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


When on the following morning Mr. Den- 
nison found beside his plate a note of a size 
and colour he knew, he took it up half re- 
luctantly, and yet with a certain guilty eager- 
ness in his eyes. 

Lately it had happened to him more than 
once to spend several days running in his 
town rooms, and it was here that he was 
breakfasting to-day. Fatigue, both mental 
and physical, was written upon his dark ex- 
pressive face as he sat before the solitary but 
well-spread table, on which the tempting 
dishes as well as the pile of newspapers seemed 
likely to remain untouched. Newspapers had 
never had much of his attention, and for many 
days past he had not even glanced at a tele- 
gram. He had slept but a few hours, having 

spent most of the night he scarcely remem- 

289 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


29O 

bered where — not at Signora Belveda’s, curi- 
ously enough, having turned back on the very 
road there, in obedience to one of those fits 
of repugnance which occasionally assailed him 
at the mere thought of the singer. A deep 
discouragement was upon him this morning; 
daylight had made him ashamed of the means 
he had taken to drown the thoughts that were 
becoming ever more troublesome. At mo- 
ments he foresaw the danger of sinking into 
the sort of man he had always despised, even 
in the thoughtless days of his earliest youth, 
and in those moments he actually hated the 
woman to whom he knew that he owed his 
moral deterioration. 

His state of mind just now was one which 
to himself seemed inexplicable, but which yet 
a looker-on with the necessary qualities of ob- 
servation could easily have explained. 

His whole thoughts were at this moment 
divided almost equally between two women, 
with only this difference, that the thoughts 
that turned about the one woman were black 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


291 

thoughts, and those that turned about the 
other white thoughts; that the one set filled 
him with pride, the other with shame. Julia 
had from the first swayed his imagination and 
excited his senses, while the chief note of his 
feeling towards Esme was a half-unwilling yet 
enthusiastic reverence. So little had the mere 
senses to do with this affection that he could 
not with any certainty have said whether he 
was more in love with her soul or with her 
body. He loved her — of that he was certain; 
but was he ready for her yet? The violent 
reawakening of those desires which he believed 
Esme’s innocent glance to have killed within 
him, and which it did not occur to him to 
think of as the last convulsive efforts of those 
instincts which had had too much oppor- 
tunity to expand, made him almost fear that 
he was not. He told himself in those mo- 
ments of doubt that his hands were not clean 
enough to gather that snow-white flower just 
yet, while the thought of leaving it ungath- 
ered for a while, to be plucked perhaps by 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


292 

other hands meanwhile, filled him with a sense 
of unutterable desolation; for, as has been 
said before, this man was one of those who 
imperiously require a woman’s influence, the 
resources of whose nature are never fully de- 
veloped until they have found their mate, 
whose individuality even is scarcely complete 
without that indispensable feminine element. 
Had he the right at present to marry the 
woman he loved? Thus queried this sick soul, 
which yet was not nearly so sick as it im- 
agined itself, but rather cramped, and to some 
extent warped by the unnatural influences 
under which it had grown up, and wanting 
only the right medicine to cure it of all its 
ills, real and imaginary. They say that for 
every sickness on earth there grows a herb, 
for every poison an antidote; and this Den- 
nison knew in his hopeful moments, and knew 
even the name of the poison which had worked 
so disastrously on his life, and of the antidote 
he required, while at other moments he lost 
sight of this hope. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


293 

Scarcely had he read the note which he 
had found beside his plate when he started 
to his feet and ordered a hansom. Within 
five minutes he was on his way to Signora 
Belveda’s house. He could not yet believe 
the announcement written in the note, which 
he had crumpled into his pocket. Even the 
assurance of the servant at the door did 
not convince him; it was not until he had 
pushed past the astonished youth and 
stood in the middle of the dismantled 
drawing-room, whose gaping door showed 
him the empty bedroom beyond, that he 
began to think this might be possible after 
all. 

“And she started yesterday?” he asked 
abruptly. 

“ By the two o’clock train, sir.” 

“And where is she now? She must have 
left her address? ” and he looked threaten- 
ingly at the frightened boy. 

“ Her address is New York, sir. She must 
have sailed by this time.” 


294 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ I don’t believe it,” said Mr. Dennison, 
as he precipitately left the room. 

The rest of that day bore for ever after 
in his memory the blurred character of a bad 
dream. He could not remember having had 
any distinct intentions, or formed any con- 
secutive resolutions. What he did was done 
without any conscious volition of his own, as 
though in obedience to some power outside 
himself. The terror of never again seeing that 
so eloquent and so troubling face, of never 
again hearing that magical voice which had 
first enthralled, him, had for the moment sole 
possession of him. He felt only aware that 
he must see her again, must hear her speak, 
if only for one single moment — if only to say 
the last word which should ever be spoken 
between them. 

It was the force of this thought which car- 
ried him first to Covent Garden to make one 
final inquiry, and which then, when the last 
doubt had been removed, had made him start 
straightway for Portsmouth, without once 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


295 

stopping to reflect where this mad pursuit 
must lead to. There followed a few hours 
more of feverish research, at the end of which 
he learnt, beyond any possibility of doubt, 
that Signora Belveda had sailed for New 
York in the early hours of this very day, and 
understood at last that Julia had escaped him. 

When he reached home next day — Sted- 
hurst this time, and not London — the strain 
of excitement was only just beginning to 
relax. Pure bodily exhaustion would prob- 
ably now have taken the upper hand, had he 
not been met on the threshold by another 
startling piece of news — the news of Mr. 
Morell’s suicide. And it was news three days 
old, too, since to his confusion he learnt that 
a message had come for him immediately after 
the discovery, but had found him absent. 

In one instant his thoughts were violently 
wrenched out of the course which for two days 
they had been pursuing. What had he been 
doing? In God’s name, what had he been 
doing? While pursuing in the wake of a 


296 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

woman who had dismissed him even from her 
acquaintance, Esme, his chosen bride, had 
been going through such a trial as does not 
come to many lives; she had wanted sup- 
port, and he had not been near. The self- 
reproach that assailed him at the thought was 
as sharp as a knife that is turned in the wound, 
and his first impulse was to hurry straight to 
Skeffington. 

But before he could act upon it, a doubt, 
sprung from his own guilty conscience, had 
intervened. A little reflection showed him 
that the only possible explanation of this 
abrupt catastrophe lay in the supposition that 
Mr. Morell, having gained cognizance of his 
relations with Julia, and foreseeing a rupture 
of the engagement, had suddenly despaired of 
his financial position. 

The remembrance of the last interview he 
had had with his future father-in-law, and of 
Mr. Morell’s sudden anxiety to hurry on the 
marriage, now rose in his mind to confirm this 
view. Would not that mean that it was he 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


297 

who had helped to make Esme fatherless? 
It almost seemed to him so, though, even in 
the midst of his bitter self-accusations, he yet 
wondered a little at Mr. Morell having lost 
courage so suddenly, when he could not yet 
have known how great the danger really was. 
There was something here which escaped him. 

Beautiful, hateful Julia! It was she who 
had done this evil; it was she who, by using 
him for her own purposes — whatever that 
might mean — as the perfumed note said with 
cynical impertinence, had sacrificed one man’s 
life and probably ruined the happiness of an- 
other. Now that the brief madness of that 
wild pursuit was over, he was able to look at 
her image with clearer eyes — able even, 
though as yet only indistinctly, to feel some- 
thing like gladness at having failed to reach 
her. What would have .been the end if 
he had succeeded? He scarcely dared to 
think. Already, right through the midst of 
pain and reproach, an immense feeling of re- 
lief was slowly working its way. He was 


298 A FORGOTTEN SIN. 

downcast, and yet vaguely conscious that 
some fearful load had been lifted from his life. 
He had been too weak, or too infatuated, to 
break his own chains; but he was sane enough 
to thank God that they had been broken for 
him. Already, too, his thoughts were turn- 
ing back longingly to the only woman who 
had ever really touched his heart; but beside 
the great yearning which would have drawn 
him mightily to her, there stood the over- 
whelming sense of his own unworthiness. All 
his instincts told him that she was his moral 
salvation; but had he any further right to 
approach ^ her, guilty as he felt in part of her 
father’s death, and unfaithful to his allegiance 
to her — at least in the eyes of the world? Was 
it likely even that she would suffer his ap- 
proach, since he could scarcely suppose her 
quite ignorant of that which her father had 
evidently known? There had probably been 
some letter of explanation, something that 
must have opened her eyes to the true state 
of the case. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


Another day all but passed, and Charles, 
dreading- to convince himself of the wreck of 
his hopes, had not yet dared to go to Skeffmg- 
ton. It was a long and weary day, spent in 
going restlessly from room to room, in look- 
ing from the windows, and in moodily watch- 
ing the clock-hands. He was waiting for 
something, though he could not have said 
what it was. 

In the afternoon hours, when the sun lay 
full on the terrace, he wandered down one of 
the paths of the park in search of fresh air. 
The day had been hot and glaring, one of 
those days that mark the moment at which 
summer has reached its height, when every 
grass blade has grown to its tallest, every 
flower expanded to its fullest, every leaf is at 
its broadest. Mosses have grown thick and 

299 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


300 

weeds luxuriant. Every coil is unfurled, and 
in the woods there stands not one fern which 
is not feathered to its tiniest tip. After this 
moment there comes a pause. Nature is rest- 
ing from her labours, but not for long. Pres- 
ently she will begin, little by little, to undo 
again the work she has done. 

Here the long, juicy grass thickly fringed 
the running water, and overgrown ferns, al- 
most tropical in their luxuriance, had fallen 
forward with their own weight and trailed 
heavily in the clear pools. With the dry sea- 
son the water’s voice had grown thin; .there 
were no martial songs to-day and no dance 
music in the air, nothing but drowsy lullabies, 
or tiny plaintive murmurs, as subdued as the 
whimper of some stricken animal. 

“ It was here that my fate was settled,” 
said Charles to himself, standing still beside 
the small cascade, now reduced to a mere rope 
of crystal sliding down the face of the rock, 
and where a newly constructed bridge replaced 
the plank over which he had carried Esme 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


301 

in his arms. With the thought there returned 
to him, like a whiff of flower-breath, the whole 
charm of that April afternoon which he had 
spent with her under these very oaks — then 
still leafless, now wrapped in their thickest 
green — the whole ardour of his first hopes, the 
whole freshness of his budding joy. How 
could he have guessed that it was destined to 
flower for so short a time? And to think that 
he himself had blasted the bloom through a 
fault which already he was beginning to view 
with a species of surprise! 

Instinctively, as he wandered on farther, 
he began to look for other spots that were 
more closely connected in his mind with that 
happy afternoon, retracing the very paths they 
had followed together, and marking the sta- 
tions in his mind, as though they had been 
those of a pilgrimage. The memories that 
they stirred within him were drawing him 
more and more mightily back towards the one 
woman, whilst the sensation of relief at being 

freed from the other, of which he had begun 
20 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


302 

to be conscious yesterday already, grew more 
unmistakable with every moment. 

Hours had passed, when, just as the cloud- 
less sun was touching the horizon, he found 
himself standing on the river-bank. The col- 
ouring of the landscape had abruptly kindled 
into a more living hue, as it generally does at 
this hour. The stretch of stones across the 
river, after having lain grey and colourless, 
even under the mid-day sun, now warmed into 
a yellowish flush. Every willow-stem over 
there grew conspicuous for a few minutes, 
glowing like a red torch from out of the gath- 
ering shadows; the willow leaves have become 
transparent, the water is strangely illuminated. 
All sorts of common objects, stones, sticks, and 
stalks, are picked out by the capricious sun 
and glorified for a passing moment. In a few 
minutes more it is all over. Both the high 
lights and the contrasting shadows are gone; 
the stones are grey again, and the willow-stems 
again sober and neutral-tinted, and over every- 
thing the veil of dusk is slowly falling. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


303 

Mr. Dennison watched the lights go out, 
and turned homewards with a sigh. The day 
was over, and it had brought nothing. 

Having reached the house again, he paced 
the rooms once more, the rooms that had been 
prepared for her , and ended by sitting down 
at the piano. For a few moments his fingers 
strayed uncertainly over the keys, then settled 
down into a consecutive melody. He sang 
the words to it under his breath: — 

“ Du bist die Ruh, der Friede mild. 

Die Sehnsucht du und was sie stillt ; 

Ich weihe dir, voll Lust und Schmerz, 

Zur Wohnung hier mein Aug und Herz.” 

Since he knew Esme, Schubert’s exquisite 
song had become a favourite of his. No other 
words and no other music expressed her to 
his mind as this did. 

“ Kehr ein bei mir und schliesse du 

Still hinter dir die Pforten zu ; 

Treib andern Schmerz aus dieser Brust ” — 

He heard a sound, and, turning round, was 
able to distinguish in the fading light a short, 


304 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


broad figure in deep mourning, standing at 
only a few paces from him. He had heard 
neither the opening of the door nor her ap- 
proaching steps. 

“Mrs. Morell!” he said, rising in aston- 
ishment. 

“Yes, it is I,” she answered, very low; 
and then the young man and the already grey- 
haired woman looked at each other in silence 
for a long minute. 

“ I have come to fetch you,” said Mrs. 
Morell, very simply, at last. “ Esme is wait- 
ing for you.” 

“ Has she sent for me? ” he asked, with 
sudden hope in his eyes. 

“ No, she has said nothing; she does not 
even know that I am here, but I know that 
she is waiting for you, all the same. She is 
ill — no, do not be afraid, she is not going to 
die. It is only that she was not strong before, 
and the shock has been too great for her. A 
little joy will make her well again; that is why 
I have come for you.” 


i 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


305 

“ You would not have come if you knew 
all,” said Charles, slowly. 

“ I do know a great deal, and the rest I 
think I have guessed.” 

“ Did he — did your husband leave any — 
explanation? ” 

“ No; but that also I have guessed. I 
knew that we were in difficulties, and I have 
learnt since that we are ruined.” 

“ Did he speak of his doubts regarding 
me? I know that he had doubts.” 

“ Yes, he spoke of them.” 

“ Did he mention any special name? ” 

"Yes ; the name of a very beautiful 
woman.” 

“ And do you think he was mistaken in 
his suspicions? ” 

“ No, I do not think he was mistaken.” 

“ And knowing all this, you still have the 
courage to recall me! What can you possibly 
think of me?” 

“ I think that you have been weak, but 
that you love my child.” 


306 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


Charles looked at her in astonishment. 
There was a new composure about her usu- 
ally so uncertain manner, a new dignity about 
the small homely figure, which sufficed almost 
to create a new individuality. Nothing but 
the consciousness that on her shoulders alone 
lay the care for her daughter’s happiness could 
thus have transformed the timid woman. Even 
she had never suspected herself of this in- 
trepidity which was able to go so straight 
to its object, without stopping to ask how 
the world would judge the efforts of the 
woman who had just acknowledged herself 
a beggar, to bring back the millionaire hus- 
band to her pauper daughter’s feet. What 
cared she what they thought of her, so long 
as she saw the light rekindled in Esme’s 
eyes? 

“ You do love her, do you not? ” she asked, 
with a gaze that seemed ready to pierce to 
his very soul. “ Were you not thinking of her 
just now when I came in? I have heard you 
play that song before; it is the one you used 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


SO; 

to say must have been composed in her 
honour.” 

“ I love her, and only her; but oh, you do 
not know all, even now! You must listen to 
the whole of the wretched story before you 
decide whether I deserve my happiness or not.” 

And in hurried sentences he told the story 
of his abrupt dismissal and of the wild rush 
to Portsmouth, baring his soul to her eyes as 
much as he dared, and confessing the very 
bottom of his weakness. 

It was almost dark when he had done 
speaking; but despite the shrouding shadows, 
he had not courage to look into the face on 
which he knew that his sentence must be 
written. With bowed head and lips com- 
pressed, he stood waiting for the condemna- 
tion he expected. 

The short black figure had moved a little 
nearer to him. 

“ But you love her? ” was all Mrs. Morell 
said again, laying her black-gloved hand on 
his sleeve. 


3°8 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


“ God knows that I love her! ” he said with 
a gasp that was almost a sob, “ and have never 
loved any one truly but her.” 

The black-gloved hand took hold of his. 

“ Then come with me,” she said, almost 
impatiently. “ Why are you so long? I have 
told you that Esme is waiting.” 

Two hours later Charles knelt beside the 
bed on which Esme had been tossing in fever 
for three days, and almost timidly pressed his 
lips to the small burning hand which lay so 
trustfully within his own; while the eyes, that 
had wanted their light for so long, gre*w calmer 
and clearer with each moment that they sunk 
deeper into his. He could have wept with pain 
at the sight of that wasted face, and in the 
same instant could have laughed with the joy 
of knowing himself forgiven. A quiet satis- 
faction was all that showed upon Mrs. Morell’s 
plain features, as she stood at the foot of the 
bed silently looking on. She was not even 
aware of having done anything especially bold. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN. 


309 

“ I have brought him back,” was all she 
had said to Esme as she led Charles into the 
room, “ because he did not dare to come him- 
self.” 

And Esme, looking in her mother’s face 
with a glance of startled inquiry, had read 
there that all was well, even if it had not al- 
ways been so, and, unable any longer to re- 
press the yearning that was killing her, had 
turned on the pillow and silently stretched her 
arms towards him. 

It was their second betrothal, not so joy- 
ful as the first, but standing on the founda- 
tion of bitter experience, and solemn with the 
solemnity of this house of mourning. 

And the dead man who slept below, pend- 
ing to-morrow’s burial, did not know that the 
sin so long forgotten had been condoned, and 
that by his death he had gained that which, 
alive, he had not been able to reach. 


THE END. 


A FORGOTTEN SIN 


A NOVEL 



BY 


DOROTHEA GERARD 

(MADAME LONGARD DE LONG-GARDE) 
AUTHOR OF 

A SPOTLESS REPUTATION, AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE, 
THE RICH MISS RIDDELL, ETC, 




NEW YORK 

D, APPLETON AND COMPANY 


































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